When antivaccinationists play on Mothering.com

Antivaccinationists irritate me, for reasons that should be obvious to regular readers. The reason is that vaccine-preventable diseases can kill. Contrary to the beliefs of many nonvaccinating parents, who downplay these diseases as being not particularly dangerous, they are dangerous. Of these, one of more dangerous vaccine-preventable diseases is pertussis. That’s why a story that popped up in my Facebook feed disturbed me so. Unsurprisingly, it’s on that other wretched hive of scum and quackery (with respect to vaccines), Mothering.com:

So, my almost ten month old started coughing and after a while, we suspected that it was whooping cough. When his cough suddenly changed from normal to not normal, we took him to our ped (which is pro-vax but isn’t pushy about it.) and he gave him some antibiotics in hopes it would help the cough.

My boy handles it really well. He gets really red, but he breathes through it and immediately after he’s like I want to play!

My husband is having a really hard time with this. REALLY HARD. The only thing he asked for our boy to get was pertussis because it is so scary! I resisted, since I’m the one that did all the research and while I showed him he just deferred to me, even though I urged him to do his own research so exactly this issue wouldn’t happen. We aren’t a team in it together anymore. He’s like “we should have vaccinated him, I asked for just ONE shot out of all of them” and then I reiterated ‘the its a cocktail’ info and he’s like then why do ALL of these doctors, all these highly educated people, think that they are beneficial? Is there some great conspiracy by ALL doctors?

This is child abuse, pure and simple. Because the mother mistakenly believes that vaccines are harmful and that pertussis isn’t such a big deal, she didn’t vaccinate, and the result is that her son is suffering. Clearly in denial of the severity of pertussis, she tells herself that he’s “handling it really well,” but then describes how he “gets really red” and “breathes through it.” Those of you out there who have ever had a cough so severe that it’s hard to breathe know how terrifying it can be. I’ve experienced it myself for—thankfully—brief periods of time. It’s terrifying. If it’s terrifying to an adult to have a cough so bad that he can’t catch his breath, how much more terrifying is it to a ten month old child?

To get a further idea of the self-absorption of the mother and her utter cluelessness with respect to pertussis, check out this passage:

Anyways. So he’s upset and I’m devastated that my boy is sick but I’m just kind of like, this is biology. This is natural. He’s going to be sick and we will deal with it and get help from our doctors and maybe even our hospital if it comes to that. He’ll get better and his immune system will be stronger. I hate watching him cough and knowing there is nothing I can do but at the same time I can’t protect him from everything. He has to live in this world and deal with germs. I won’t put him in a bubble.

The naturalistic fallacy strikes again. I suppose that to this mother it would be completely natural if her son were to die of pertussis because she didn’t want to vaccinate. Or if he were to get a secondary pneumonia and end up in the hospital on antibiotics or even on a ventilator, that would be completely natural too, except for the ventilator and antibiotics. I have a message for this mother: Nature doesn’t care about you or your baby. What’s “natural” isn’t necessarily best. Before vaccines and modern medicine, huge numbers of babies never made it to adulthood because diseases like pertussis and other vaccine-preventable diseases killed them. Your child’s immune system might not even be “stronger” after this. Even “naturally” acquired immunity to pertussis due to the disease is not necessarily lifelong.

I feel for the husband, too. I really do. First of all, he sounds as though he is at least semi-reasonable about vaccines because, reading between the lines of this mother’s account, it sounds as though wanted his son to be vaccinated and, failing to convince his wife of that, to persuade her at least to let their son be vaccinated against pertussis. He sounds as though he was not antivaccine but that he didn’t really want to fight with his wife over vaccinations even though he clealry realized that certain vaccines, at least, are very important. His wife refused, and, not wanting to make waves, he foolishly went along, probably knowing that he was endangering his son. Now his son is suffering, and so is he. No wonder he’s having a hard time! He’s clearly regretting his decision. Worse, because he’s the stay-at-home dad, a musician who works nights and weekends while his wife appears to have a day job with more conventional hours, he has to watch his son cough up a lung every day while the mother is off working. He is seeing firsthand all day every day the consequences of his wife’s decision, and he’s the one who has to deal with it far more than she does. He should really tell her that he’s not doing it anymore, that it’s her fault that the child has pertussis, and that she needs to take some time off of work and take care of the child. The mother keeps harping about togetherness and how they should “work it out together”; yet she isn’t helping. She’s off at work, leaving him to deal with a sick child that is the direct result of her irresponsible behavior while whining on Mothering.com about how he is having a hard time with this. Hell, yes he is! He should have a hard time with this.

On the other hand, as much as I hate to concede this, one of the commenters has a point when she says:

While I feel for your husband (and I really do! ) you asked him to research things so you could make a decision together…and he didn’t. Being mad after he abdicated responsability isn’t overly appropriate.

Yes, the husband did abdicate responsibility by letting his antivaccine loon of a wife run the show with respect to vaccinating their son. Indeed, I rather suspect that he knows her viewpoint is pure quackery but ultimately capitulated because he didn’t want to get into what would no doubt be a horrible fight. Instead, he appears to have been engaging in damage control by at least trying to persuade his wife to compromise on the one vaccine he thought to be the most important. Not surprisingly, because she is an antivaccine loon, she wouldn’t even throw him that little bone. In this, the father rather reminds me of Dr. Oz, who, as you might recall, admitted that his wife, a reiki master who is antivaccine, runs the show with vaccines, the result of which was that they did not receive the flu vaccine. Of course, the person the husband is mad at is probably himself for doing exactly that. What he could do to make up for it is to stop being such a wimp and confront his wife, demanding that once the child recovers (and, hopefully, he will recover) he receive all his vaccines to bring him back on schedule. Otherwise, the same thing is disturbingly likely to happen again with any number of other childhood diseases.

Meanwhile, the commenters on Mothering.com seem to think that vitamin C can be used to treat pertussis. Commenter after commenter expounds upon the benefits of vitamin C for shortening the course of pertussis, even though there is no evidence to suggest that it can. Advice takes the form of brain dead suggestions like this:

Get some sodium ascorbate from the healthfood store and give it to him in some water and/or OJ, until he gets loose stools – then you have reached his bowel tolerance. This can and will cut the severity of the illness.

This commenter then claims that, because the DTaP is not 100% effective the child might have gotten pertussis anyway, a sentiment echoed later in the comment thread:

I hope you find something your little man likes, and I hope he feels better soon! You can show your husband examples of fully vaccinated kids contracting pertussis, and maybe that would help him during this stressful time.

The stupid, it burns. Seriously, this is arguably the single dumbest argument that antivaccinationists make. Let’s do a little reductio ad absurdum to demonstrate why. Using this “logic,” one could equally well argue that:

Because people wearing seatbelts and young children riding in car seats still sometimes die in car crashes, seatbelts and car seats don’t work. Even with a seatbelt or car seat, you or your child might die anyway if you get into a serious crash!

Because people riding bicycles sometimes suffer severe head injuries after a spill or crash even though they are wearing their helmets, bicycle helmets don’t work. Even with a helmet you might still suffer a serious head injury if a car hits you.

I’m sure you can think of more examples. The point is not that vaccines are perfect. It’s that they greatly decrease the risk of the diseases they are targeted against, not that they are perfect protection. It’s not a difficult concept to understand; yet antivaccinationists like this woman keep parroting the same brain dead argument like the ones above.

Ultimately, the moderator shut down the comment thread. Sadly, it was not because of the levels of antivaccine views, quackery, and pseudoscience being suggested to the mother. Instead, it was because people from outside the impenetrable cozy antivaccine bubble of Mothering.com were trying to bring some actual science into the thread. This is completely unsurprising, as Mothering.com makes it very explicit that they are not there to “debate” but rather to support whatever dangerous quackery any mother wants to use on her child, particularly if it involves not vaccinating. I’m only surprised it took the moderator so long to protect the Mothering.com denizens from anything resembling reason, science, or medicine.

The wife wanted him to “research things,” which would really only need to be a trip to the CDC website. The assumption is that he didn’t “research things” because he didn’t arrive at her loony-tunes conclusion.

The wife was interested in winning, not consensus; why should he “confront his wife and demand” etc.?
He should just take the kid to the doctor and get the shots.

Yeah, I wouldn’t take her word for it that he didn’t “research things,” as how many times have antivaxxers and woo-sters come here and said variations of “Educate yourself!” and “Do your own research!”

Unfortunately when there are parents with differing views, it is often the one who would prefer the child to get vaccinated (often the husband) who ends up capitulating to his partner’s wishes. Not because the case against vaccination is sound, but because most couples have to constantly be compromising on matters they have different opinions about for the sake of their families and their relationships. But antivaccine woo is so powerful that the rational partner is forced to choose the route of “accommodation” rather than any genuine compromise, since the alternative might be to precipitate a divorce or a family split.

(Sub)consciously the provax partner may have made a risk calculation, and say to him/herself “well our kid will probably be fine, I mean how likely is it that he will get one of these diseases?” The answer is, with the comeback of diseases like pertussis (and measles), that it is quite possible, rather than it being a very rare occurence.

Antivax sentiment is rock solid, and it is constantly reinforced by the antivax echochambers like mothering.con. The chances of breaching their outpouring of verbigeration on the topic with considered, evidence based scientific argument is zero.

Meanwhile, the commenters on Mothering.com seem to think that vitamin C can be used to treat pertussis. Commenter after commenter expounds upon the benefits of vitamin C for shortening the course of pertussis, even though there is no evidence to suggest that it can.

This is typical of the antivaxer. It is perfectly fine for kids to catch deadly diseases, because there is always some quack “remedy” or other that can help the child overcome the illness. And of course, the child will be so much “stronger” once the illness resolves. Never mind the months of respiratory distress, the failure to thrive during the time of the acute illness, the setbacks to normal child physical and neurological development, and the increased likelihood of long term respiratory compromise, all of which will make the child weaker, rather than stronger, and help him fail to achieve his health potential and will delay his milestones (which is what usually happens to infants getting bad pertussis)

You can show your husband examples of fully vaccinated kids contracting pertussis, and maybe that would help him during this stressful time.

I’m not sure that finding out that the vaccinated are much less likely to get full-blown whooping cough than the unvaccinated would help the father much. I’ve had to deal with a child with whooping cough who had to be hospitalized and it was no fun at all for anyone involved.

New mommy is offering up a slew of excuses….including hiding behind/and reminding the husband “we are Libertarians”…which of course, does not absolutely preclude either of them from getting the facts about pertussis and the vaccine that would probably have preventing their infant from contracting the disease.

Need I remind you all, that the stork didn’t drop this infant into their lives? The parents went through a pregnancy and I am confident, that during every prenatal visit, the OB or Nurse Midwife recommended Tdap boosters for the pregnant woman, her partner and every close family member and caregiver who are expected to have close contact with newborns up to one year of age. New mommy would have been urged to get the Tdap booster before she and the baby left the birthing hospital.

Dear lord, there is so much b.s. contained in that post and contained within most of the comments, I scarcely know where to begin.

Vitamin C as a cure in lieu of preventing pertussis? Nope.

Time for daddy to get some accurate information about vaccines and the serious consequences of not vaccinated babies and children….and stand up for his baby and any other babies they may have.

Perhaps what disgusts me the most about this is that the “offending” (read: scientifically literate) comments didn’t just cause the thread to be locked, they were _deleted_. As in, “we can’t have people hearing the opposing viewpoint at all”. Disgusting. I hope this mother contracts the illness herself.

You just have to *love* the comment suggesting that the parents compound the misery of a 10 month old baby already suffering from pertussis by administering enough Vitamin C to ensure diarrhoea.
I don’t even know what “then you will have reached his bowel tolerance” is supposed to mean in this (or any) context!

My house still had the original, 100 year old, all natural paint and fireproofing in places when I bought it. Made from natural lead oxide pretty much right out of the ground, and linseed oil. The fireproofing for the chimney was a natural fiber, as well. Asbestos.

Needless to say, I removed as much as I could of the in a safe way and replaced them with those nasty lead and asbestos free artificial products from big chemical. Because I hate nature….. Oh, wait no. Because I hate lead poisoning.

I had a number of now preventable illnesses as a child. If I had a time machine and could send vaccines back to avoid these, I absolutely would. I remember when smallpox went out. If I had traveled as a child like one of my friends (his parents did mission work in Africa and India after the Peace Corp), it would have been a definite risk for me. Still have the scar from that vac.

There is nothing artificial about immunity. Getting help with developing immunity is about as natural and age-old as it gets. That is how modern vaccination came about. I do wonder what she would do if her child was bitten by an animal? Would she do the rabies vac series immediately? Or wait for lab tests? Or, because rabies is natural, just deal with it and hold a funeral?

From Mothering: “I’m reopening the discussion so that meganlauriana can get the support she needs. Posts to this discussion should be in support of her decision to not vaccinate not in criticism of it or to try to convince her otherwise. “

Here’s some anecdotes: So I’ve taken care of plenty of babies with pertussis. One of my littlest patients was hospitalized for 1 month because he kept having apneic spells. The children were vaccinated but the parents weren’t. Oh, and my husband had pertussis a few years ago. My vaccinated 6th grader brought it home. He had a cough for about 2 weeks. My husband was not so lucky. There were several nights where he woke up coughing and couldn’t catch his breath. It was frightening.

My son is fully vaccinated and has autism, so I followed the rabbit hole of “biomedical intervention” and convinced myself vaccines were to blame. I’m pulling myself out up out of that hole now (sites like yours are very helpful) and do intend to vaccinate any future children I have.

Anyway, one of the blogs I used to follow regularly is an anti-vaxxer whose whole family contracted whooping cough and spread it: http://www.kitchenstewardship.com/2013/11/01/whooping-cough-keep-it-to-yourself/ . She basically spread the disease to the vaccinated crowd, so ergo, vaccines don’t work, and the comments are full of people ratifying her decision not to vaccinate and condemning the toxins in the unnatural vaccines, and hey, have you tried essential oils to hear whooping cough?

At some point I had a girlfriend for a couple months that was in all sorts of woo: energy healings (reiki and whatnot), psychic bs, astrology, spirit channeling, past life woo, quantum mysticism, etc, and obviously anti modern medicine and anti vaccine.
I learned all these things about her as our relationship progressed. She would always see me a very rational person and she really liked me and wanted a serious commitment form me. But me on the other hand, the more I knew her, the more scared I was that I could share a life with such person, including future offspring. I broke up, she was too crazy, but I thought that if the relationship ever got to this point of a child not getting proper medical attention and vaccination my atitude would be to sue the mother for neglect and abuse, take over the child and give him/her proper medical treatment. Gladly, not a problem I’ll ever have to face.

“I have a message for this mother: Nature doesn’t care about you. What’s “natural” isn’t necessarily best[…]Even “naturally” acquired immunity to pertussis due to the disease is not necessarily lifelong.”

I see the recurrent problem here. Orac still confuses Natural Immunity with Naturally Acquired Immunity. Bad news Orac, they are NOT one and the same.

We very much need a better pertussis vaccine. Right now, the vaccine has the same problem the actual disease does — immunity isn’t very good and it doesn’t last all that long, maybe a couple of decades. But that said, since the immunity is no worse than what the disease itself gives you, I’ll totally take the vaccine instead of the disease. Pertussis is *horrible*.

I won’t blame the dad too much here. He’s in a horrible position, and likely weighed the risk of his child getting pertussis (most unvaccinated people in America won’t get pertussis, thanks to widespread vaccination) versus the risk of his crazy wife divorcing him and taking custody of the boy, making it even harder for him to protect the boy. Since he’s unemployed, it would be hard for him to get custody, even though he’s been the primary caregiver. It’s just the way our courts tend to work. Plus, in court, I suspect his crazy wife would have a tactical advantage because of her certainty and willingness to stretch the truth to her gain.

Unfortunately when there are parents with differing views, it is often the one who would prefer the child to get vaccinated (often the husband) who ends up capitulating to his partner’s wishes. […], since the alternative might be to precipitate a divorce or a family split.

I strongly agree with this. Disagreement over the chilldren is a strong cause for separation/divorce, and I understand why one partner prefers to fold. “Forcing” the issue by having a child vaccinated against the other partner’s expressed wishes may also be a sure way to lose the child custody (“he is so confrontational and doesn’t listen to me; he is putting the children at risk with unreliable drugs”). Unless the divorce judge is pro-science. What’s the record on this?
I understand that not vaccinating could be likened to child neglect, and in this context you can rightfully ask the other partner to grow a backbone. But it sounds a bit ridiculous, to go at war with your spouse over a little syringe prick. That is, until your child get sick.
In the short term, one partner forcing the vaccination may lead to a better outcome for the children. In the long term, maybe not so.

I would also add that, in the traditional family model, the mother is the one in charge of the children health – hence, I believe, why we seem to see more anti-vax mothers rather than fathers.
We do have a few vehement anti-vax fathers, like Stone. They make for by quality that they like in number…

Re: vitamine C to cure illnesses

From a previous story reported by Orac so long ago, I can predict what’s going to happen:
– the child just had a dose of antibiotics
– in the near futur, the child will receive vitamine C (or any other alt-med du jour)
– the child will go better and the vit C will be credited for the cure.

Honestly. This is all that has to be said. The elite want you vaccinated the second you are born so they have control over you from the start. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but children have as many rights as the brainwashed sheeple sticking them with needles. You don’t like your privacy, and liberties violated. Think about that when the government controls everything you are allowed to eat, drink, say or think, and good luck with it if you aren’t one of the ones marked on the extermination list. The internet is your teacher, and if you shut off your idiot boxes and quit being brainwashed by mainstream media you would quickly realize the bs that is being fed to you. Even the weather networks on television are the ones controlling the weather. Quit the fluoride, do a detox and start researching what the government is doing to you before the wool grows too thick!

^helianthus
Problem is that the benefits of a vaccine (preventing illness) remain totally invisible. If every child who was unvaccinated always got the disease, then the worm would turn, but until then… the prescient, prudent parent proposing “poisonous” pertussis preventatives for their precious progeny will be very much on the receiving end of a good metaphorical kicking.

I fear that, in the father’s shoes, I would make an appointment with the family doctor after the child recovers, and start the vaccination program unilaterally. If my wife were to complain I would point out that we had tried it her way and it was a disaster, so now it was time to do it my way. There are times you have to stick to your guns.

Yeah Orac, I hear you man. If we were back in the good old days, good husbands could give these broads a nice b!tch-slap until they get with the program and realize that vaccines are everybody best friends. Now look where PC got us! (Hee hee hee.)

Right after the “how about just the pertussis shot” conversation is where I’d, as the stay-at-home parent, make an appointment with my pediatrician for the Dtap. Done.

I’m sorry–but as much as I love my spouse, there’s no way in HELL I am putting my child at risk out of deference.

I could barely read this. I have a brother-in-law who is in the same position this father has been–none of his kids are vaccinated because his wife, with her Ph.D. in Google, has convinced him not to vaccinate.

I do not know what to say about that blog post you linked to. Did they ever even get a formal diagnosis? It doesn’t sound like it or the doctor would have told them how long they were contagious. So, for all they know they had something totally different. Also, I believe there were a handful of studies that found although vaccinated children can catch pertussis they do not actually get the whooping cough because the toxin that causes it is effectively blocked.

“I have a message for this mother: Nature doesn’t care about you. What’s “natural” isn’t necessarily best[…]Even “naturally” acquired immunity to pertussis due to the disease is not necessarily lifelong.”

I see the recurrent problem here. Orac still confuses Natural Immunity with Naturally Acquired Immunity. Bad news Orac, they are NOT one and the same.

Citation needed.

Though perhaps you were not aware that immunity from many bacterial diseases does not confer permanent immunity. Even after coughing a lung up with pertussis, you can get it again in as short as five years:

She basically spread the disease to the vaccinated crowd, so ergo, vaccines don’t work

@Teri

Well, since the majority of the population is–thankfully–vaccinated, of course they would see numbers of infections in the vaccinated. 2 out of 2 and 4 out of 100…OMG TEH EVUL VACCINES DONT WORK.

Thank you and good luck while crawling out of that rabbit hole. 🙂

This is on my list of deal-breakers. “Antivax” is right below “serial killer” and right above “has never seen the original Star Wars.” And LOVE LOVE LOVE how these people do nothing but scream and shout about how they have a right to speak their minds and personal beliefs and blah blah blah but when someone tries to present a rational counter-argument to their stupid, NO DIFFERING OPINIONS HERE.

Having a difference of opinion this serious with a spouse is akin to having a deep religious difference. I don’t think two people this different can have much of a relationship anyway unless one of them converts to other’s position. My guess is that they’ll either end up divorced or have a relationship that’s pretty lopsided.

Here’s another one for you: Anecdotally (on message boards), I’m seeing an increase in the number of moms declaring that avoiding sugar will keep away pertussis, flu, etc. Boosts your immune system along with those vitamin c supplements. Oh, and add to that the claim that those of us who vaccinate are lazy, less likely to wash our hands, well, they’re simply better prepared to fight disease than we science-y sheeple are. &#*)*@#&@^% Morons.

If I were that dad (and if he is, in fact, a stay at home dad), the next day my wife went to work, I’d be going straight to the pediatrician and getting him vaccinated every way they knew how. Mommy never has to know, and even if she finds out, what is she going to do, un-vaccinate him? Screw her, I would never let my wife endanger my child just because she got her Ph.D. from Wikipedia State.

Right. A few years ago, in Januray IIRC, a guy had business in an area notorious for being a hotbed** of anti-vax activity. A few days later, he started coughing… and coughing…. etc.
It persisted for several weeks- he -btw-has asthma- which the coughing didn’t help.
Long story short- doctor, meds, increased inhaler use, additonal inhaler meds rx, misery, complaining etc.

This is just me, but I have no idea how anyone can stay in a relationship with such a huge difference in opinion in what imho seems to be a pretty important issue for spouses to agree on. Makes me wonder if she turned to woo after they were married or if she was always that crazy.

Dingo199: But antivaccine woo is so powerful that the rational partner is forced to choose the route of “accommodation” rather than any genuine compromise, since the alternative might be to precipitate a divorce or a family split.

Actually, divorce might be the least bad option here. If he manages to find employment and carefully documents *all* of the anti-vaccine stuff and ‘cures* his wife has been using/participating in, he might have a case.

Lilady: New mommy is offering up a slew of excuses….including hiding behind/and reminding the husband “we are Libertarians”…which of course, does not absolutely preclude either of them from getting the facts about pertussis and the vaccine that would probably have preventing their infant from contracting the disease.

Most libertarians live a pretty fact-free existence, so I’m not surprised the wife thought being libertarian entitled her to her own set of facts and a free immunity ride.

Helianthus: But it sounds a bit ridiculous, to go at war with your spouse over a little syringe prick. That is, until your child get sick.

Every anti-vaxxer I’ve seen seems to thrive on drama, so I’m not surprised some would *go to war* over a syringe prick, or in one “Thinking Mom’s” case, over giving child forbidden food like cookies. (Kid wasn’t allergic to gluten, she was trying to cure kid through diet.)

Is it me, or do most parenting sites/ parenting groups end up turning into cesspools of drama? It makes me worry if I’ll still be able to keep friends once they become parents.

In an antivax-related note, by chance yesterday I ran across Katie Couric quoted breathlessly warning that “Shots designed to protect your children might actually hurt or cripple them”! That’s her on the TV screen in… 1995. A lot of responses to her recent Gardasil embarrassment have supposed that if criticized she might realize her errors — but I don’t think she’s going to change a tune she’s been singing for two decades, do you?

Dorit: “From Mothering: “I’m reopening the discussion so that meganlauriana can get the support she needs. Posts to this discussion should be in support of her decision to not vaccinate not in criticism of it or to try to convince her otherwise “

And if a mom should happen to post that she’s getting her child all the recommended vaccinations, the site editor would delete all posts from others criticizing her or trying to get her to change her mind?

Oh yes, the old megadoses of Vitamin C. The kid almost certainly has decreased oral intake and increased insensible water loss, so whopping amounts of a substance that precipitates out as spiky crystals is just the thing. If you think that having a baby with pertussis is bad, wait to see how hard it is to have one with kidney stones.
Not for her sake, I hope Mommy Jackass and her unvaccinated son don’t respectively have a pregnancy and a case of rubella concurrently.

Virchow,
You have picked a ‘nym that may be more appropriate and revealing than you realize. Rudolf Virchow went to his deathbed in 1902 rejecting the germ theory of disease, thereby proving that even the finest mind can be blind to facts.

Quite a number in the KS community have mentioned that my title is the most inaccurate part of this piece…and they’re so very right. Here’s how one commenter encapsulated it perfectly: “We are weighing the risks of vaccination with the risks of the illnesses. Even if we contract the illness we have not “lost”. We do not regret our choice. It is a gamble either way.”

I see the recurrent problem here. Orac still confuses Natural Immunity with Naturally Acquired Immunity. Bad news Orac, they are NOT one and the same.

Is Th1Th2 back?

Then we have Mike at #22, who has penned a masterful parody. That, or he’s too stupid to understand what Bill Gates meant about people having smaller families when all their children are likely to live to adulthood. Mike accuses others of being “sheeple”, and my newly reinforced irony meter hums a little, grows a bit hot, there’s a little smoke, but no explosion.

Then there’s this at #39

*WHACK* (hee hee hee)

I wondered for a moment who is excruciatingly dumb enough to think spousal abuse is funny, then I realized it was Greg. No surprises there.

I did a quick search on vitamin C to treat pertussis. The earliest reference I found so far was Can Med Assoc J. 1937 August; 37(2): 134–136, “Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C) Treatment of Whooping Cough”, which concluded from a small number of cases (10) that “Ascorbic acid has a definite effect in shortening the period of paroxysms from a matter of weeks to a matter of days.” The amount of ascorbic acid used in treatment ranged from 150-500 mg/day. However, according to Douglas Gairdner in Br Med J. 1938 October 8; 2(4057): 742–744, “…the assertion of Omeraud and UnKauf that the paroxysmal period is shortened ‘from a matter of weeks to a matter of days’ was not confirmed.” He went on to comment on the previous paper’s lack of controls, and to state that in his study (21 treated with vitamin C and 20 controls) the differences between the cases was within the limits of statistical error.

From Mothering: “I’m reopening the discussion so that meganlauriana can get the support she needs. Posts to this discussion should be in support of her decision to not vaccinate not in criticism of it or to try to convince her otherwise. “

A discussion, without opposing views? Sounds more like an echo-chamber to me. If the mother thinks she has the facts on her side, I suppose it would be better, if she would be confronted with opposing facts.

But wait…
aren’t WE the ones who are supposed to be harming children and making them suffer needessly?

Because I immerse myself in reading anti-vax mothering propaganda on a nearly daily basis, I’ve found ANOTHER idiotic consequence of their activities which is exemplified today @ AoA:
these mothers instruct their children- esp siblings of autistic kids- into the fine and arcane pseudo-science of anti-vax as well as the surrounding issues relevant to ASDs.
Witness today as Conrick’s other daughter writes about her autistic sibling.There have also been a few similar posts at TMR.

Some of the ill effects of anti-vax aren’t only physical illness but inculcating an odd worldview and perhaps creating a co-mingled victim/ saviour apprenticeship.

It comes from historical conventional medical practice, though it’s not clear whether it was common or experimental. PubMed lists a fair number of publications in European journals from the 1930s through 1950s on treating pertussis with vitamin C. None have abstracts available. No doubt, any apparent benefit was far less than that seen with antibiotics – randomized trials were not the rule in those days, but the benefit of antibiotics for non-resistant bacterial infections is easily observed through ordinary human experience – so vitamin treatment would have been given up shortly after antibiotics became readily available and publications on the subject cease. But the idea that vitamin C could have some benefit continued to be handed down, probably by people who generally favor beliefs that say vitamins are good for you, and occasionally pops up in print on non-scholarly sites like the one mentioned.

Why is anyone not surprised that greg would make light out of domestic abuse and spousal violence? Comments like that would, if he actually did look after MR/DD and autistic children, would be grounds for immediate dismissal from his/her/its job.

And, speaking as someone who has worked with people affected by domestic violence, I would think that greg is way over the line with his crass and classless comments and owes everyone an apology, in addition to his other apologies for his other comments.

I always scratch my head on the implied idea that parents have to “do their own research” because the literature is written by the drug companies. How many parents really expect to understand post-graduate levels of immunology and epidemiology? How will they “do research” without reference to the medical literature? Why does everyone seem to think that medical research is the one thing any idiot can do online?

If you finish a post-graduate level course in immunology or epidemiology, I absolutely guarantee you will no longer be anti-vaccine. It’s not as simple as “get sick” or “don’t get sick”… the vaccines are designed to steer the immune response towards one of dozens of different pathways, and to do it with a minimum of immunopathology. The more you understand the process, the more important you realize they are.

Well, I imagine that those who write about us “elitist smart people with their fancy degrees” know a *great deal* about exactly how those degrees are acquired-
how they sit us down and have us memorise volumes of dogmatic truth, entirely stifle debate, never look into the past histories of explanations of particular phenomena, changes in emphasis or various ‘schools of thought’-
only judging how well we parrot the party line which we must present unhesitatingly in order to get our seal of approval, sheepskin and secret hidden tattoo ™.
Right. That’s how it is.

Hey Guys, including Orac,
if I do say, the joke is not at the expense of physically abused female victims. On the contrary, it quite effectively pokes fun at your rediculous, neanterthal suggestion, implying that women on the whole just aren’t bright enough to get the vaccine debate right. It just goes to show that sexism is alive and well even among the ‘intellectual elites’.

This is just me, but I have no idea how anyone can stay in a relationship with such a huge difference in opinion in what imho seems to be a pretty important issue for spouses to agree on. Makes me wonder if she turned to woo after they were married or if she was always that crazy.

/pointless speculation

It’s actually not pointless speculation. I think when it comes to issues of pregnancy/child rearing, those aren’t broached in earnest until they are upon you. So unfortunately for the partners of the craxy ones, they’re in deep before they realise what they have to contend with. Probably why it’s easier to capitulate to the craxy one rather than fight it.

Anecdotally, from the family court cases I’ve seen, it appears as though the parent who wants to vaccinate “wins out” over the other. It is the evidence-based choice after all.

And if a mom should happen to post that she’s getting her child all the recommended vaccinations, the site editor would delete all posts from others criticizing her or trying to get her to change her mind?

I’ve been wondering about this question. In my experience anti-vaxxers and alt med proponents will … if not welcome, then at least give a pass to people whose pro-science position is couched in the suitable language i.e. a “choice.”

If a mother came on to Mothering.com and said something like:

“I’m planning on giving my children all the recommended vaccines but I want to make it clear that I 100% support any mother who chooses not to. I am appalled at all the propaganda coming out of so many doctors that this is something which “should” be done. For shame! I would never ever try to tell a mother she has to do the same as me. I respect our right as mothers to do whatever we believe to be best for our child.”

Those who are familiar with the atheist debates will recognize this as a pro-vaxx version of ‘accomodationism.’ It’s also similar to the “shruggie.” It’s the only possible Good Pro-Vaxxer — the one who knows their place. She’s not trying to criticize or convince anyone.

It’s applying “tolerance” to a fact claim the way one would normally apply it towards a lifestyle or preference, an identity.

Would this pass at Mothering.com? Would it get posted? Would it gather support? Would people fail to respect this Good Pro-vaxxer’s “choice” and criticize and condemn even though she fell for the frame?

I don’t know. In some forums I bet you could get away with it — but I’m not familiar with this one.

@Johanna
Indeed I am. I’ve been a lurker and very (veryveryveryvery) occasional commenter. I’m aware of Gergs typical trolling, but he usually sticks to dodging questions and spitting typical antivaccine rhetoric, so I don’t really get in much of a fluff over it. Throwing out a comment about beating ones wife and repeating it again when he failed to generate a response got under my skin a bit.

And I see my attempt at superscript (the multiple very’s in parenthesis) didn’t work. I’m confused about which html tags wordpress recognizes. When I tried it in an editor, it came out fine. Oh well, no matter.

@MOB- I suppose I just satisfied Garg as well. I probably shouldn’t have said that.

Although I do believe that he oinks, I’d guess that he is trying to portray vaccine *advocates*- such as the husband in the story- as the abusers. He, and we, are the problematic ones. NOT HIM.
But it probably illustrates his own bent somehow as well.

DW: I think this current thing might be my fault, cause I pointed out that asking for a yes or no answer on ‘do you believe vaccines cause autism’ is a clear gotcha, like ‘have you stopped cheating on your wife?’ only I used a different word in the middle. I.E. a one word answer would *always be wrong.*

“Mothering.com”.
The very title speaks volumes. Women to avoid website.

No it doesn’t — that’s one of the big problems. The title is very neutral.

If I was a new mother unsure of myself and in search of some advice, support, and new mother friends, I might scroll around the internet, see “mothering.com” and think it sounds like a big site and a safe place, with lots of diversity, love, and concern.

Unsurprisingly, it’s on that other wretched hive of scum and quackery (with respect to vaccines), Mothering.com

Oh, they’re pretty bad on other fronts, as well.

He sounds as though he was not antivaccine but that he didn’t really want to fight with his wife over vaccinations even though he clealry realized that certain vaccines, at least, are very important.

This is extremely common over there. I have no doubt that the “research” he was supposed to do was to pore over her collection of insane antivax bookmarks and videos.

Meanwhile, the commenters on Mothering.com seem to think that vitamin C can be used to treat pertussis.

Not just vitamin C, it has to be sodium ascorbate, which is “better absorbed” and “gentler.”

Ultimately, the moderator shut down the comment thread. Sadly, it was not because of the levels of antivaccine views, quackery, and pseudoscience being suggested to the mother. Instead, it was because people from outside the impenetrable cozy antivaccine bubble of Mothering.com were trying to bring some actual science into the thread.

This is on the “I’m Not Vaccinating” subforum. Those are the rules. The main vaccinations forum is more liberally moderated (and the moderation loosened up considerably overall when the print edition ceased). If people were signing up accounts without bothering to understand how it works, they shouldn’t complain when those comments disappear.

@dingo:

But antivaccine woo is so powerful that the rational partner is forced to choose the route of “accommodation” rather than any genuine compromise, since the alternative might be to precipitate a divorce or a family split.

I can assure you that had the husband not capitulated or vaccinated the children anyway, there would be a regular chorus urging prcisely that. “Working together” means “mommy gets her way,” to the point that premeditated “oopsie” pregnancies garner substantial support.

@MO’B:

The earliest reference I found so far was Can Med Assoc J. 1937 August; 37(2): 134–136

@ PGP:
Yeah, the question’s form/ requirements give it away as a set-up.

I would ask the question honestly:
“Do you think that vaccines cause autism?’
and never demand a one-word answer.
Why would it need to be a one-word answer anyway? Inability to deal with complexity or multi-word phrases?

I think that most SB people would be able to say :” I don’t think that vaccines cause autism”
And perhaps follow up with phrases like: ” Research shows no evidence for that theory”; “Wakefield is a fraud cum laude” or ” Seriously bad idea, that!” or “Are you joking?”

Sometimes people want to play games thinking that that will enable them to out-smart others. Doesn’t work out so well if you are already less smart than your targets.

if I do say, the joke is not at the expense of physically abused female victims. On the contrary, it quite effectively pokes fun at your rediculous, neanterthal suggestion, implying that women on the whole just aren’t bright enough to get the vaccine debate right. It just goes to show that sexism is alive and well even among the ‘intellectual elites’.

You’re going to have to show exactly what comment sparked that train of thought, because I’m not seeing it. Most people have been talking about the single case of one parent making what is wrong (both based on all we know and based on the actual incident involved), while the other wanted something which in hindsight would have been a very good idea. The interpretation that people are saying that “women on the whole just aren’t bright enough to get the vaccine debate right” is all on you. The reality is that the particular person who decided not to vaccinate her child got it wrong. She may be personally bright enough to have gotten it right, but she didn’t.

Fathers can draw the same kind of wrong conclusion, and they have received equivalent comments.

I have actually been in arguments about wearing a helmet where the other person claims that helmets don’t work because you can still die. Unfortunately, what is “logic” to someone with sound deductive reasoning is fallacy to someone else. It’s unbelievable. Fortunately. If you don’t wear a helmet, I won’t crack my head open while riding a bike. The same cannot be said for vaccination.

Fathers can draw the same kind of wrong conclusion, and they have received equivalent comments.

Indeed, and in this post the father, although he’s garnered some sympathy for his plight of having an antivaccinationist for a wife whose irresponsibility got their son pertussis, has also garnered criticism for not having stood up to his wife on this issue of vaccination, for having in essence abdicated part of his responsibility as a father.

On the contrary, it quite effectively pokes fun at your rediculous [sic], neanterthal [sic] suggestion, implying that women on the whole just aren’t bright enough to get the vaccine debate right. It just goes to show that sexism is alive and well even among the ‘intellectual elites’.

And what this comment goes to show is that you have no understanding whatever of the internal dynamics of MDC (which aren’t overall univocal on either vaccines or shared responsibility; I’m pretty sure I commented close to 200 times back in the day with nary a problem) but are quite willing to ignore this when you smell a chance to start whoring for attention anew.

“Citation needed.
Though perhaps you were not aware that immunity from many bacterial diseases does not confer permanent immunity. Even after coughing a lung up with pertussis, you can get it again in as short as five years:
Pediatr Infect Dis J. 2005 May;24(5 Suppl):S58-61.
Duration of immunity against pertussis after natural infection or vaccination.”

That’s because you’re also confused or simply not paying attention. Your citation actually refers to naturally vs artificially acquired immunity as a consequence, that is, AFTER having acquired a natural infection or vaccination. Your citation does not in any way suggest natural immunity because natural immunity, which is INNATE, does not require exposure to natural infection or vaccination.

Regarding “women on the whole just aren’t bright enough,” I will note that Megan’s work experience (she’s not an accountant, BTW, but an “account technician”) does not exactly encompass anything suggesting competence to evaluate such information.

Anyway, I’m not going to reactivate a long-dormant account, but I can propose something that would probably pass muster at “I’m Not Vaccinating”:

While I feel for your husband (and I really do! ) you asked him to research things so you could make a decision together…and he didn’t. Being mad after he abdicated responsability isn’t overly appropriate.

Kathy, while this is fair enough, the question remains what kind of research material Megan provided to DH and whether she would be open to him [sic] providing contrary evidence. If it was a foregone conclusion that there would be no vax, it seems like [sic] one thing that would have to be agreed upon is that they were choosing one risk over another and having a plan for sharing the burden if things became lopsided.

^ In fact, that probably could have been worded more strongly before the thread was closed and reopened, to suggest that Megan also “abdicated responsability” by failing to establish genuine agreement.

the thing about innate immunity is that everyone has it, vaccinated or not: you seem to think that acquired immunity against a particular infection wipes out innate immunity. the immune system is smarter than that.

ikr–yes, antibiotics for whooping cough. Bordetella pertussis is a bacterium. Most vaccine-preventable diseases are viral, but not all.

In fairness to mothering.com its pro-vax areas in tha same over-folder are pretty great. This is the “Vaccinating on Schedule” sub-folder:

A giveaway just for vaccinating parents!
A law professor’s response to the recent Vaccine court briefing
A new “my kid had a shot with no serious reaction” celebration thread
Another sad reminder of life before vaccines
Anti-vaccination activists should not be given a say in the media
Anyone required to get a flu shot for work?
Before Vaccines
Could the death of my daughter been prevented?
Different countries, different schedules!
Doctors, Vaccinations, and no Pediatrician
Experience with vaccine reactions?
Flu vaccine is around 83% effective in children 6 months- 7 years?
Great post! And I also finally feel like I belong .
Hello Vaccinating Parents!
Lessons from a Kansas graveyard: What a 1903 outbreak of diphtheria can teach us today
MMR shedding
My kid, completely unprompted, is writing a research paper on vaccines.
Observations about pertussis and vaccines from a peds RN
Pertussis
Protecting Our Tomorrows: Portraits of Meningococcal Disease
Saw this great article/visual for the HPV vaccine
Saw this today and thought some of you might enjoy 🙂
Starting one at a time?
Study on the safety of H1N1 vaccine in pregnancy
That’s great! 🙂
The Case for Vaccination
The forum that will keep me on mothering.com
Typhoid vaccine in pregnancy?
Vaccines Don’t Cause Autism: Healthcare triage #12
Vaccines and “Unavoidably Unsafe Products”
Why are childhood diseases often more serious when an adult gets them?

from one of them:
“I cannot TELL you all how grateful I am to see this forum. I joined mothering.com years ago (different user name), but left in disgust over all the anti vax tripe.”

I wonder if she knew how common pertussis is when she decided not to vaccinate. Also, when she realized her baby was going to be primarily formula-fed, with just a little bit of supplementary breast milk, I wonder if she spent any time reevaluating her decision. And, when her infant developed a cough she didn’t even take him in to the pediatrician right away. (She says they didn’t take him to the doctor until his cough turned from normal to not normal. And I wonder if the baby had cold symptoms before developing the “normal” cough.) Didn’t she realize that there was a good chance it was pertussis and the sooner the baby was started on antibiotics the better off the baby would be? Also, did the doctor have the parents start on antibiotics so they wouldn’t get pertussis and spread it to others?

If she’s not going to vaccinate, you’d think she would at least educate herself about the symptoms and treatment of the disease. And even if it’s just cold symptoms, don’t most people take a sick infant in to see the doctor right away?

Your citation does not in any way suggest natural immunity because natural immunity, which is INNATE, does not require exposure to natural infection or vaccination.

That must be Th1Th2, or someone else has stolen her act, including misunderstanding what “innate” means in the context of immunology.

If innate immunity to pertussis did not exist, everyone who contracted it would rapidly die. We have some innate immunity to most pathogens, but it isn’t sufficient to keep us from getting infected or from getting seriously ill or dying. It is mostly enough to buy some time while our adaptive immune response gets going. Those who are vaccinated, or have otherwise acquired adaptive immunity, don’t have to rely on their innate immune system to keep them alive, as their adaptive immune response will kick in immediately. That’s the whole point of vaccination, to gain that huge advantage without the inconvenience of getting sick.

Do you have any evidence that innate immunity exists in the sense you mean it, presumably in the sense of super-healthy children, on some fad diet or supplement regime no doubt, who will not contract pertussis even if unvaccinated and exposed to the pathogen? If so (which I very much doubt), how do we know which children have this innate immunity, and therefore presumably don’t require vaccination?

By the way, your first citation explains how mice with defective innate immunity i.e. TLR4-defective mice, got sicker than those with intact TLR4, but they still got sick. Your second citation, such as it is, is about innate immunity in the newborn, which doesn’t protect newborns from contracting a wide range of infections, including hepatitis B.

If innate immunity prevented us from ever getting infected, none of us would ever suffer from infectious diseases and vaccination (and antibiotics) would not be necessary. This is very clearly not the case, so what is your point?

At 33 years old I nearly died from pertussis. My vaccine had worn off and I worked with immigrant children, many of whom were not vaccinated. The pertussis evolved into pneumonia which triggered atrial fibulation. I spent nearly a week in the hospital and three weeks in the hospital. It took six months before I could be shocked into a normal heart rhythm after multiple attempts at cardioversion. I would not wish pertussis or any of it’s potentially deadly effects on anyone – except maybe the parents who think it is ok to let their children suffer because they are so into being altrnative that they can’t see the forest for the trees.

MOB asks where did I get the impression from Orac’s blog and the follow-up comments that women are under attach for their ‘seeming’ fondness of anti-vaxx woo?

Answer:

Orac gave two examples of ‘crazy anti-vaxxer loons’ and both happen to be women: this lady from mother.com, and Dr. Oz’s wife.

Helianthus states,

” Unfortunately when there are parents with differing views, it is often the one who would prefer the child to get vaccinated (often the husband) who ends up capitulating to his partner’s wishes. […], since the alternative might be to precipitate a divorce or a family split.”

And, Dingo responds with,

“I strongly agree with this’.

Again, guys, am I so off-base in claiming that the insinuation that is being made is crazy, irrational women are often prone to anti-vaxx woo, and they need their sober, rational husbands to set them straight?

Again, the true chauvinism that I am parodying is extending from you guys. I think you are the ones that owe women an apology.

Narad: I think the reason there are so many more female anti-vaxxers is that women are discouraged from science tracks and trained to prioritize emotional reasoning. (Yet more reasons emotions are not good)
Therefore, you get a collision between emotions and logic, especially where children are concerned. I think the takeaway is that these women aren’t necessarily dumb, they just act like it. In my opinion, they ought to be discouraged from it. (Women being dumb in public is a *big* pet peeve of mine.)

I suspect that honest scientific types give up a little too much ground when they include all the standard caveats. It may be true that we never know anything with one-hundred point zero zero zero zero percent certainty, and it is being entirely honest to give answers like “there is no credible evidence that vaccines cause autism,” but that answer doesn’t mean the same to the non-scientist as it does to the scientist. To the scientist, it means that vaccines do not cause autism. The scientist is willing to concede that there is a possibility, no matter that it is incredibly slight, that some new discovery could connect vaccination to some as yet undiscovered problem. But the question as stated “do you believe that vaccines cause autism?” is misunderstood by the lay reader. To the anti-vaccine people, the preferred answer is somewhere along the lines of “vaccines maybe don’t cause autism for most children, but there is a possibility that they do for some children, and mine was one of them.” To them, the gray area is not in the scientific certainty/uncertainty that there is any causal relationship at all, but rather exists as the gray area of prediction for whether any particular child is susceptible. At least that’s how I read some of their comments.

There’s another problem with people asking whether we “believe” something. I’m not trying to be overly clever here — I was asked by a family friend at a dinner party one time, “Do you believe in evolution?” I think it’s a bit of a trick question, and I answered in a friendly way, “It’s not a matter of belief or disbelief. The evidence for evolution is so overwhelming, from so many different kinds of inquiry, that its my judgment that evolution is a fact.” Just borrowing that phrase “the fact of evolution” from Gould, mind you, but the friend didn’t have to know.

So I think it’s possible to give a two word answer to that vaccine-autism question: “Absolutely not.” As I said above, I might be a little pedantic about the “believe” language in answering the question, but I don’t see why we have to accept game playing about how many words have to be in the answer, as you rightly pointed out. I do think that scientists should understand the context when they are giving out answers, and respond accordingly. Another point is that when speaking among themselves and to students, scientists who know the research literature are generally willing to make more definitive statements simply as a way of saving time. After all, there is not a lot of play in the question of whether DNA is the hereditary chemical. You can provide a little broader context by talking about RNA viruses, but the acceptable answer is yes.

Again, guys, am I so off-base in claiming that the insinuation that is being made is crazy, irrational women are often prone to anti-vaxx woo, and they need their sober, rational husbands to set them straight?

Again, guys, am I so off-base in claiming that the insinuation that is being made is crazy, irrational women are often prone to anti-vaxx woo, and they need their sober, rational husbands to set them straight?

Yes. The IP address for Virchow matches Thingy’s old IP address. For some reason my IP-level spam filter appears not to be working the way it should. I’ll have to look into that. In the meantime, I’ve made sure that Thingy is gone again. 🙂

#27, Greg, February 3, 2014:
Ah, you’re back. Before we continue our discussion on epistemology and your intro philosophy issues, be sure to read and comprehend the last portion of our previous session. That is Comment 265 of the article titled More examples of how influenza still kills.
Let me know when you’re ready (or just continue commenting, and we’ll pick it up in the flow).
—————————————————————————-

Bill, to be honest, I am starting to get a little bored with this JTB discussion, and I want to move on to another topic. Anyway, without going back again and studying in detail your rebuttal of my argument, I would have to say that you are misrepresenting this argument. You seem to be suggesting that my argument boils down to saying that belief is sufficient for knowledge.

Bill, never did I suggest this. Again, according to JTB, if one wants to assert knowledge of a thing or theory, he must believe in the thing, has evidence that the thing is true, and the thing must be true. Of course, believing in something will not amount to knowledge. You must also satisfy the other two conditions.

As for the condition of having evidence that supports the thing or theory, again I felt you also misrepresented my earlier point. You initially dismissed my claim as suggesting that I am only arguing for evidence in favour of the thing or theory. And, when I subsequently pointed our that evidence for the thing or theory may involve both the pros and cons –one essentially weighs them –you accused me of a retraction. Bill, why would you jump to the conclusion that when I initially discussed having evidence in favour of something, I meant that counter evidence is not to be considered?

Finally, on the matter of the thing needing to be true for one to claim knowledge, you similarly accused me of shifting the goalposts when I said this truth should be established by scientific method. Again Bill, whether it is a self-evident truth such as striking your hand with a hammer causes pain, or truth that is supported by the scientific method, I never implied that it should be established just based on belief.

Bill, indeed this verification process may not be absolute. Scientific proof may be only tentative. And, I remember my prof saying that indeed we may not know something to be true with absolutely certainty. He added, all we may have is strong or weak knowledge. But the key point, Bill, is that truth is being explored from an outside source other than just belief.

Finally Bill, Narad provided examples that appear to counter this whole JTB notion. For instance, he gave the example of how it’s possible that you may know something while you might not believe it, such as knowing that flying is safer than driving, but not believing this to be true. Yet, dissecting this example, I wonder how much it truly discredits JTB. For instance, is it really the case that one does believe driving is safer than flying, or the person is just more comfortable with driving than flying?

In conclusion, Bill, I still detect an essential contradiction in vaccine zealots’ position that they know that vaccines do not cause autism, even though they appear to be uncomfortable with this belief, as reflected in their unease in stating it.

Narad: I think the reason there are so many more female anti-vaxxers is that women are discouraged from science tracks and trained to prioritize emotional reasoning. (Yet more reasons emotions are not good)
Therefore, you get a collision between emotions and logic, especially where children are concerned. I think the takeaway is that these women aren’t necessarily dumb, they just act like it. In my opinion, they ought to be discouraged from it. (Women being dumb in public is a *big* pet peeve of mine.)

——————————————————————————
I have a simpler theory:

Maybe they have the foresight to realize that once vaccines screw up their kid, and the father walks, they will be the ones left holding the bag.

@ Lisa: Good point. The baby would have had three doses of DTaP vaccine at 2-4-6 months of age, which would have provided a high degree of protection against contracting pertussis. Look at what other vaccines against some awful childhood diseases, the parents are denying their infant.

There’s a thread on mothering.com about FALSIFYING VACCINE RECORDS to get into schools where vaccines are required.

Oh, there was someone who made the poor decision to cop to this for nursing school one time over there while having an easily triangulated profile. She had left the profession but was thinking about returning.

Narad and I located a court case in New York State where parents tried (unsuccessfully) to claim a “sincere religious belief” against vaccinations for school entry.

The interesting part of the case was, prior to going that route, the non-vaccinating parents had falsified a copy of their child’s pediatrician’s Vaccination Administration Record, to indicate that the child’s vaccinations were up-to-date. (A sharp *school nurse contacted the child’s pediatrician to get the accurate Record).

Anyone here familiar with pertussis booster for adults?
I have an immune system dysfunction such that my MD strongly advised against getting an adult pertussis shot.

But with some % of New Age disease vectors circulating about I would like to get a booster if it’s at all reasonable. I’m wondering if there is more than one form of the vaccine which can be used in adults, perhaps there’s one that triggers a weaker but still useful response?

Outside of expectant mothers, the CDC has no guidelines for adult vaccinations that I can find. The current pertussis vaccine only contains a few antigens, not the whole bacterium and is safer than the older, whole cell vaccine. Recent studies have questioned how strong of an immune reaction the new vaccine produces and how long the immunity it confers lasts.

If your doctor is recommending that you not get vaccinated because of an immune condition, then there’s probably a good reason for it. Ask for a second opinion if you’re really concerned, but getting the vaccine may do more harm than good in your case.

Spectator, I received a DTaP/TDaP booster a few years ago. It was the exact same vaccination as an infant would have received. I don’t know if there’s a booster like that, but I would guess not. The attenuated pertussis triple jabs were created because the old DTP was (incorrectly) suspected of causing problems.

I also like how Greg mixed up Dingo199 quote and mine. And conveniently forget me pointing at a possible confirmation bias in seeing many anti-vax women.
On par with his usual honesty and debate skills.

One would have to assume that parents who faked records to show their child was vaccinated, and that child then caused harm to another child with the relevant infectious disease, would likely go to jail and be sued to their front porch.

My comment was that one partner would accommodate the other’s “antivax” wishes, and I said that it was often the husband. From that gerg assumes we advocate violence against women? (This being the person who later states women operate on emotion, not logic, and accuses them of being “dumb”?) And then he claims we are the misogynists?

Well, maybe I shouldn’t expect a level of cognitive function from him that this blog is usually blessed with. Brainless trolls are ubiquitous on the internet. I’ll just live with em. Oink, oink, oink.

Bill, to be honest, I am starting to get a little bored with this JTB discussion, and I want to move on to another topic.

(Thanks Narad, for fixing this paragraph for Greggy, above. “JTB”, for those newcomers to this discussion, is the “way of knowing” – episteme – called “Justified True Belief.”)
Of course you’re bored with a discussion with some substance. Just imagine, if your arrogance of True Belief will allow, how bored we all are with your nonsense, arrogance, and prevarication.

Anyway, without going back again and studying in detail your rebuttal of my argument, I would have to say that you are misrepresenting this argument.

It’s understandable why and how you would have to say that” I am misrepresenting you, by I quoting you in context, and focusing on the actual meaning of both what you said, and what you failed to say. This is sometimes called ‘defending the indefensible’. The “you’re misrepresenting me by accurately quoting me” ploy is a standard response by politicians, theologians and True Believers (like your AoA co-religionists) when observed to trip over their own words.

You seem to be suggesting that my argument boils down to saying that belief is sufficient for knowledge.

Thus begins the backpedaling: claiming that I said one thing when I plainly said something else. Your initial assertion is not to the sufficiency of belief, but to its necessity. That’s the assertion that I’m discussing.

Bill, never did I suggest this.

Likewise. What I actually quoted, in context, was your Dark-Ages assertion that belief was an essential prerequisite for knowledge, the first step. You repeat this assertion in the very next sentence. Let me embolden it for you:

Again, according to JTB, if one wants to assert knowledge of a thing or theory, he must believe in the thing, has[sic] evidence that the thing is true, and the thing must be true. Of course, believing in something will not amount to knowledge. You must also satisfy the other two conditions.

The idea you’re trying to evade understanding is that your first prerequisite — belief — is strictly unnecessary and is often counterproductive (ref the Scientific Method).

As for the condition of having evidence that supports the thing or theory, again I felt you also misrepresented my earlier point. You initially dismissed my claim as suggesting that I am only arguing for evidence in favour of the thing or theory. And, when I subsequently pointed our that evidence for the thing or theory may involve both the pros and cons –one essentially weighs them –you accused me of a retraction. Bill, why would you jump to the conclusion that when I initially discussed having evidence in favour of something, I meant that counter evidence is not to be considered?

Oh, maybe it’s because that’s what you actually said in the context in which you said it. Your initial claim gave you a excellent opportunity to mention contrary evidence, if it were to be a consideration — your failure to do so confirmed your consistent behavior of refusing to consider the evidence that you’ve been presented with, over the months, whenever that evidence contradicted what you wanted to believe. If you look at the history of this discussion, I was the one who introduced the idea of considering unfavorable evidence. You then retracted your failure and climbed aboard my point.

Finally, on the matter of the thing needing to be true for one to claim knowledge, you similarly accused me of shifting the goalposts when I said this truth should be established by scientific method. Again Bill, whether it is a self-evident truth such as striking your hand with a hammer causes pain, or truth that is supported by the scientific method, I never implied that it should be established conditionjust based on belief.

The goalpost shift was with respect to your assertion that belief is the sine qua non of knowledge, that ‘a thing’ cannot be true unless and until you believe. The scientific method (indeed, the entire toolbox of the sciences as an episteme) is predicated on eliminating belief (and other prejudices) as a factor. Thus, if you use the scientific method as The Truth in your third step, you’ve violated your first step (“first, ya gotta believe”) — if belief is a factor, it ain’t science, no way, no how. Since science is the only half-way reliable way we have ever found to deal with The Truth of reality, when you allow the use of non-belief (science), you deny all validity to JTB as an episteme; you deny your initial assertion, the assertion that you started this whole discussion with.

Bill, indeed this verification process may not be absolute. Scientific proof may be only tentative. And, I remember my prof saying that indeed we may not know something to be true with absolutely certainty. He added, all we may have is strong or weak knowledge. But the key point, Bill, is that truth is being explored from an outside source other than just belief.

Thus invalidating JTB as the episteme. Even your chosen Intro Philosophy authority denies your initial assertion, and you knew it when you asserted it (or so you say now). What hint does that knowledge give about your personal intellectual honesty?
Again, if the Justified True Belief episteme has any value as an episteme, why does it require outside (non-JTB) sources for its validity?

Finally Bill, Narad provided examples that appear to counter this whole JTB notion. For instance, he gave the example of how it’s possible that you may know something while you might not believe it, such as knowing that flying is safer than driving, but not believing this to be true. Yet, dissecting this example, I wonder how much it truly discredits JTB. For instance, is it really the case that one does believe driving is safer than flying, or the person is just more comfortable with driving than flying?

You should discuss this with Narad. I suspect that Narad would object to your change of subject from belief to comfort, however.

In conclusion, Bill, I still detect an essential contradiction in vaccine zealots’ position that they know that vaccines do not cause autism, even though they appear to be uncomfortable with this belief, as reflected in their unease in stating it.

So you return to ad hom misrepresentation of all who don’t find your chosen beliefs persuasive in light of reality. “Zealots”? Really? More like projecting your belief-based episteme onto those of us with a reality-based foundation for knowledge. If there be any unease with stating beliefs, it derives from your equivocation in the word ‘belief’. Maybe I can clarify it for you (as if you’ve ever shown any interest in clarity).

There are two distinct meanings (of interest here) of the word ‘belief’. The meaning you try to use is a binary meaning, all or none, where a belief either is totally absent or is adopted as if part of your identity. This is the meaning in which your “yes” of “no” answers may be meaningful.

The reality-based meaning is a spectrum from (for our purposes) from ‘meh’ or no belief, to certainty subject to further consideration, typically based on new information. Some examples may be seen in common-law jurisprudence: a civil jury (or fact-finding judge) has a criterion of “preponderance of the evidence” for most questions; for others questions, “clear and convincing evidence”; a criminal fact-finder uses “beyond a reasonable doubt.” The sciences, likewise, have different criteria in different realms, based on realm-dependent factors. Physics can use, and uses, a 5σ criterion; SBM tends to use probabilities better than 5%. An interesting criterion is “the evidence is such that it would be perverse to believe otherwise”, which characterizes the evidence concerning evolution. Again, it’s a spectrum that could, if one wished, be considered a continuum.

You complain of our resistance to adopting your “yes or no” version of belief. Tough. The spectrum definition is the one we use, because it fits reality so much better than your binary definition. The resistance is our insistence on intellectual honesty, contra your insistence that we choose between two dishonest answers. If you have such an issue with our preference for reality, you’re free to leave and return to your “my imaginings are Supreme Truth” world at AoA.

Bill, to be honest, I am starting to get a little bored with this JTB discussion, and I want to move on to another topic.

(Thanks Narad, for fixing this paragraph for Greggy, above. “JTB”, for those newcomers to this discussion, is the “way of knowing” – episteme – called “Justified True Belief.”)
Of course you’re bored with a discussion with some substance. Just imagine, if your arrogance of True Belief will allow, how bored we all are with your nonsense, arrogance, and prevarication.

Anyway, without going back again and studying in detail your rebuttal of my argument, I would have to say that you are misrepresenting this argument.

It’s understandable why and how you would have to say that” I am misrepresenting you, by I quoting you in context, and focusing on the actual meaning of both what you said, and what you failed to say. This is sometimes called ‘defending the indefensible’. The “you’re misrepresenting me by accurately quoting me” ploy is a standard response by politicians, theologians and True Believers (like your AoA co-religionists) when observed to trip over their own words.

You seem to be suggesting that my argument boils down to saying that belief is sufficient for knowledge.

Thus begins the backpedaling: claiming that I said one thing when I plainly said something else. Your initial assertion is not to the sufficiency of belief, but to its necessity. That’s the assertion that I’m discussing.

Bill, never did I suggest this.

Likewise. What I actually quoted, in context, was your Dark-Ages assertion that belief was an essential prerequisite for knowledge, the first step. You repeat this assertion in the very next sentence. Let me embolden it for you:

Again, according to JTB, if one wants to assert knowledge of a thing or theory, he must believe in the thing, has[sic] evidence that the thing is true, and the thing must be true. Of course, believing in something will not amount to knowledge. You must also satisfy the other two conditions.

The idea you’re trying to evade understanding is that your first prerequisite — belief — is strictly unnecessary and is often counterproductive (ref the Scientific Method).

As for the condition of having evidence that supports the thing or theory, again I felt you also misrepresented my earlier point. You initially dismissed my claim as suggesting that I am only arguing for evidence in favour of the thing or theory. And, when I subsequently pointed our that evidence for the thing or theory may involve both the pros and cons –one essentially weighs them –you accused me of a retraction. Bill, why would you jump to the conclusion that when I initially discussed having evidence in favour of something, I meant that counter evidence is not to be considered?

Oh, maybe it’s because that’s what you actually said in the context in which you said it. Your initial claim gave you a excellent opportunity to mention contrary evidence, if it were to be a consideration — your failure to do so confirmed your consistent behavior of refusing to consider the evidence that you’ve been presented with, over the months, whenever that evidence contradicted what you wanted to believe. If you look at the history of this discussion, I was the one who introduced the idea of considering unfavorable evidence. You then retracted your failure and climbed aboard my point.

Finally, on the matter of the thing needing to be true for one to claim knowledge, you similarly accused me of shifting the goalposts when I said this truth should be established by scientific method. Again Bill, whether it is a self-evident truth such as striking your hand with a hammer causes pain, or truth that is supported by the scientific method, I never implied that it should be established conditionjust based on belief.

The goalpost shift was with respect to your assertion that belief is the sine qua non of knowledge, that ‘a thing’ cannot be true unless and until you believe. The scientific method (indeed, the entire toolbox of the sciences as an episteme) is predicated on eliminating belief (and other prejudices) as a factor. Thus, if you use the scientific method as The Truth in your third step, you’ve violated your first step (“first, ya gotta believe”) — if belief is a factor, it ain’t science, no way, no how. Since science is the only even half-way reliable way we have ever found to deal with The Truth of reality, when you allow the use of non-belief (science), you deny all validity to JTB as an episteme; you deny your initial assertion, the assertion that you started this whole discussion with.

Bill, indeed this verification process may not be absolute. Scientific proof may be only tentative. And, I remember my prof saying that indeed we may not know something to be true with absolutely certainty. He added, all we may have is strong or weak knowledge. But the key point, Bill, is that truth is being explored from an outside source other than just belief.

Thus invalidating JTB’s “first, ya gotta believe” as the episteme. Even your chosen Intro Philosophy authority denies your initial assertion, and you knew it when you asserted it (or so you say now). What hint does that knowledge give about your personal intellectual honesty?
Again, if the Justified True Belief episteme has any value as an episteme, why does it require outside (non-JTB) sources for its validity?

Finally Bill, Narad provided examples that appear to counter this whole JTB notion. For instance, he gave the example of how it’s possible that you may know something while you might not believe it, such as knowing that flying is safer than driving, but not believing this to be true. Yet, dissecting this example, I wonder how much it truly discredits JTB. For instance, is it really the case that one does believe driving is safer than flying, or the person is just more comfortable with driving than flying?

You should discuss this with Narad. I suspect that Narad would object to your change of subject from belief to comfort, however.

In conclusion, Bill, I still detect an essential contradiction in vaccine zealots’ position that they know that vaccines do not cause autism, even though they appear to be uncomfortable with this belief, as reflected in their unease in stating it.

So you return to ad hom misrepresentation of all who don’t find your chosen beliefs persuasive in light of reality. “Zealots”? Really? More like projecting your belief-based episteme onto those of us with a reality-based foundation for knowledge. If there be any unease with stating beliefs, it derives from your equivocation in the word ‘belief’. Maybe I can clarify it for you (as if you’ve ever shown any interest in clarity).

There are two distinct meanings (of interest here) of the word ‘belief’. The meaning you try to use is a binary meaning, all or none, where a belief either is totally absent or is adopted as if part of your identity. This is the meaning in which your “yes” of “no” answers may be meaningful.

The reality-based meaning is a spectrum from (for our purposes) from ‘meh’ or no belief, to certainty subject to further consideration, typically based on new information. Some examples may be seen in common-law jurisprudence: a civil jury (or fact-finding judge) has a criterion of “preponderance of the evidence” for most questions; for others questions, “clear and convincing evidence”; a criminal fact-finder uses “beyond a reasonable doubt.” The sciences, likewise, have different criteria in different realms, based on realm-dependent factors. Physics can use, and uses, a 5σ criterion; SBM tends to use probabilities better than 5%. An interesting criterion is “the evidence is such that it would be perverse to believe otherwise”, which characterizes the evidence concerning evolution. Again, it’s a spectrum that could, if one wished, be considered a continuum.

You complain of our resistance to adopting your “yes or no” version of belief. Tough. The spectrum definition is the one we use, because it fits reality so much better than your binary definition. The resistance is our insistence on intellectual honesty, contra your insistence that we choose between two dishonest answers. If you have such an issue with our preference for reality, you’re free to leave and return to your “my imaginings are Supreme Truth” world at AoA.

Anyway, while musing on the inconsistencies in Gerg’s Canadian accent, I did happen upon this gem:

Hey Jen, what is the article about? I tried looking online but couldn’t find anything. Yes, Anne is amazing! I think in the fight against vaccines her approach will be proven to be the most effective. To get through to our elected officials we need to erode the public’s trust in vaccines. We are starting to see this. To think that nearly half of the population are so skeptical that they will delay or pass on at least one of their child’s vaccines. This is really a big thing! The net is a powerful means for fostering this distrust and I think it would be great if we could support Anne. I did not see much takers, but I am definitely on board.

1) The people I want to be vile to have said stuff that can be twisted to construe a slight to women’s intelligence.
2) Domestic abuse is *totally* the same thing as a slight to wonen’s intelligence.
3) Therefore I get to make lots of vile suggestions of domestic abuse.

Even if we grant the dubious premise 1, premise 2 is clearly utter moosecaca.

The truth is much simpler. Greg wants to be vile, because for some reason in his sad twisted brain, he thinks he’s *achieving something* by being vile. He can’t hope to win any arguments on facts and logic, because even if he had a good grasp of the facts (he doesn’t) and even if they supported him (they don’t) he’s not intelligent enough to assemble them coherently.

So, faced with a task that’s far beyond his reach, he takes one of the few things he CAN hope to achieve and pretends that’s his goal. Just as military planners in Vietnam found themselves saying with straight faces “we destroyed it in order to save it,” Greg says to himself “I am somehow demonstrating that antivaccination has more logic behind it, every time I make people recoil from what a vile, hate-filled person I am!”

There you go misrepresenting my argument –again! Bill, did I not mention that even though I was presenting the JTB conditions in the order of believing, having evidence, and the the thing must be true, this is not to say the are necessarily occurring in this order? Fine Bill, let me rephrase things!

According to JTB notion, to know something you must have evidence in the thing, the thing must be true, and, finally, you must also believe the thing to be true.

Ok drug pushers (yeah –yeah– you don’t sell illicit drugs on the street, but you very much fit the billing — give it a break),

I wanted to continue with our program and discuss another matter. As you may have noticed, I haven’t referred to autistic as brain damaged in awhile. It’s not I don’t think they are, but I have been wondering if with autism we are not dealing with so much as destruction of neurons and pathways, and leading to mental retardation, but with a brain that is just wired differently.

I mentioned prior that I am a big fan of Dr Blaylock’s immuno-excito-toxcity theory. He explains that vaccine insults lead to over-stimulation of neurons, and resulting in their deaths and destruction of pathways. Yet, Kreb, said something that got me thinking: He explained that autitistics are known to have bigger brains, and this does not sit well with the neurons death hypothesis.

Reflecting on this, I came across the stories of Carly Flieschman, and ‘Ida in Autismland’. Both are cases of autistics who appear to be low functioning, but demonstrate remarkable intelligence through their computer writings.

Anyway guys, I want your takes on their stories. Do you think their cases serve as quintessential proof that autistic do not have a damaged brain, but one that is just wired differently?

Finally, even though I am open to this notion that the autistic brain is wired differently, I still don’t believe that it is something that can be recovered. I consider that once the child passes the age of three, and the brain sets, recovery is next to impossible. For this reason, I also wonder if ABA therapy is not a complete bunk, and not proven to be scientifically effective.

“Also, on the Greg stuff — there’s a huge difference between vigorously advocating a course of action and abuse. Greg’s posts on this are not only odious, they’re even dumber than usual.”

Oh yes, let’s be perfectly clear hear what you guys are advocating. You are saying that a husband should divorce his wife for being an anti-vaxxer. You are saying he should just take his kid behind her back and vaccinate him against her wish. You are saying he should stop sleeping with her.

You are saying all these these while arguing that women are more often the anti-vaxxer in relationships.

@Bill Price
There you go misrepresenting my argument –again! Bill, did I not mention that even though I was presenting the JTB conditions in the order of believing, having evidence, and the the thing must be true, this is not to say the are necessarily occurring in this order?

Give me the reference to your statement of order-independence: I don’t recall it.
I do recall where you specified the believe-then-support-then-require-truth. That’s also quoted in my early comment.
Your lesson for this comment: as most of us learned in or around kindergarten, there are two kinds of whole numbers used in our everyday dealings, Cardinal and Ordinal. (At least we learned the ideas, but probably not the nomenclature.) The cardinal numbers include zero, one, two, …, and are sometimes called Counting numbers. Can you imagine why? There are also the arithmetic inverses of the non-zero cardinals, which allow smoother handling of subtraction, deficits, and such, but these are not part of the set of counting numbers. Your statement about JTB listed three steps in the JTB process.
The other numbers, Ordinals, specify an total ordering throughout the set of ordinals. They include first, second, third, …, where each number (except first) has a unique immediate predecessor, by the numbers’ predecessor relation. By definition, first precedes second, which precedes third, … . There is an auxiliary relation, successor, which is the reversal of the predecessor relation. Its definition is like this: iff A precedes B, then B is successor of A. Immediacy should be obvious in either relation.
In your statement of the JTB process, you appended an ordinal number first, second, or third to each step: this is how, in English, one specifies an ordering within a list of cardinality three.
Counting numbers have a cardinality relation, which is not an ordering relation, although it’s easy to map the cardinality relation onto an ordering relation. The reverse mapping, an ordering relation onto a cardinality relation, is not always possible. Both these orderings are transitive.
When you used the order-specifying construct of English, in a writing that you put forth as being in the English, you told us that order is important.

According to JTB notion, to know something you must have evidence in the thing, the thing must be true, and, finally, you must also believe the thing to be true.

This is a major change to your original ordering, not merely a rephrasing. Whereas you started with a total ordering (belief precedes support, support precedes truth-testing), you have reduced it to a partial ordering that is disjoint from the original. You have made, in your new ordering, belief last (‘finally’ is a synonym for ‘last’, the ordinal designator for that member of an ordered set which has no successor), you have made truth-testing and support as predecessors of belief, and have removed the ordering between the former two.
No honest person would claim that such a major change would qualify as a mere ‘rephrasing’ of the original. Perhaps if you were to honestly admit that your original statement of JTB was wrong… .

There you have it, Bill. Am I making myself clear?

Oh, certainly. When you first attempted to retract the ordering from your original statement, it was clear that you are in the goal-post shifting mode. If you could see the arrogance in yourself that’s clear to the rest of us…
By the way, the changing the ordering of the JTB notions does not cure the Dark Ages nature of requiring binary (yes/no) belief as part of knowledge and/or Truth. Whether you say, “First, ya gotta believe”; “Last, ya gotta believe”; or “Somewhere along the way, ya gotta believe”, you’re still planting your episteme (and any ‘knowledge’ you think you’ve gained with it) firmly in the Dark Ages.

I mentioned prior that I am a big fan of Dr Blaylock’s immuno-excito-toxcity theory. He explainshypothesises incorrectly that vaccine insults lead to over-stimulation of neurons, and resulting in their deaths and destruction of pathways.

FTFY.

Yet, Kreb, said something that got me thinking: He explained that autitistics are known to have bigger brains, and this does not sit well with the neurons death hypothesis.

Ah, so you’ve actually internalised that autism is not brain damage. Looks like there’s hope for you yet, Greg.

I came across the stories of Carly Flieschman, and ‘Ida in Autismland’. Both are cases of autistics who appear to be low functioning, but demonstrate remarkable intelligence through their computer writings.

Anyway guys, I want your takes on their stories. Do you think their cases serve as quintessential proof that autistic do not have a damaged brain, but one that is just wired differently?

Strong supporting evidence, yes. I would hesitate to call the stories of two people as “quintessential proof”.

You are saying that a husband should divorce his wife for being an anti-vaxxer. You are saying he should just take his kid behind her back and vaccinate him against her wish. You are saying he should stop sleeping with her.

Let’s try a thought experiment.

Let’s say you married a woman and had a child with her. She’d always seemed to hate vaccination as much as you do: she refused to get a flu shot or TDaP, for instance.

But when the child came, she changed her tune. She went out and got the flu shot and TDaP herself — to protect the child, she said — and wanted you to do the same. Worse yet, she started reading online and concluded that the evidence was that the child needed to be vaccinated. She got the child its DTaP and it cried all afternoon. Now she says she’s going to bring the child to date on all vaccines on the schedule.

What would you do, Greg? Would you consider divorce so you could get custody and “protect” your child? Would you consider not sleeping with her to ensure that there would be no more children for her to “harm” via vaccination?

Sure. I think that we need to develop accessible ways of expressing what we mean:
I once had the formidable task of ‘translating’ scientific or medical concepts for people who had extremely variable backgrounds educationally. This was especially difficult when creating pamphlets that needed to get information out quickly and efficiently –
without writing them a book, so to speak.

Pseudo-scientists make use of their audience’s lack of insight into the often complex nature of the subject matter.
How many times have we heard about the need for a vaxed/ unvaxed study?- they always fail to mention just *why* that is impossible.

Similarly,alt med advocates frequently cite small sample size, inadequately controlled or *in vitro* studies as the ‘last word’ when they are often nearly meaningless in contradistinction to the body of work agreed upon as consensus, timely research.

I don’t use Carly and Ida’s story to know that autistic brains are wired differently; I use the mountain of evidence in the scientific literature.

As far as ABA goes, it’s bunk because it’s a research protocol, not an applied therapy (but then, when all you have is a hammer, everything look like nails) and to get results, you need punishments.

The autistic brain, it can learn for life and especially before 35 years old, it can learn at a surprising rate. You just need to provide the right environment for learning which is pretty much the same as neurotypical (including books at a young age) and watch the autistic child use them, maybe the same way as NT or differently according to the autistic’s preferred way of learning.

If Gerg is a competent behavior analyst, I would be surprised given his comments. Behavior analysis is a science of behavior and applied behavior analysis is applying that science to produce meaningful behavior change. No other approach has the volume of evidence as an intervention for teaching skills and treating behavioral excesses.

Hey Alain,
Sure we can teach the autistic brain at any age, but can we teach it to operate as a NT one. From my end working with autistics, I am not seeing this. Lilady, I sometimes sense that you are not that fond of me (hee hee hee), but can you point me to studies proving the efficacy of ABA?

@PGP
Are you sure you don’t want to reconsider our little heart-to-heart?

@Narad
So you think I am Canadian — hey? Like — what’s it to you –hey? You’re such a hoser! Anyway, your quote was one of me speaking praisingly of Anne Dachel. Guys, I mentioned already that Anne Dachel is someone that I admire the most. She is my hero — the ultimate warrior!

Tx for the info. Is the adult Tdap booster identical to the current child vac, which is attenuated rather than killed whole cells? Or is there a separate, different version available for adult booster/refresher shots?
I will read the links as soon as I get a chance.

CDC Pink “Pertussis” FYI about the differences between the primary (childhood) pertussis vaccine and the Tdap booster for adolescents and adults. And, see my link at # 151 for the most up-to-date ACIP/CDC recommendations for vaccinating with the Tdap vaccine.

I mentioned prior that I am a big fan of Dr Blaylock’s immuno-excito-toxcity theory. He explains that vaccine insults lead to over-stimulation of neurons, and resulting in their deaths and destruction of pathways.

Citations needed. Where can we find the journal publications where Dr. Blaylock stated this ‘immuno-excito-toxicity’ theory and provided the evidence from which it’s been dervived?

@ CF “I wonder if she knew how common pertussis is when she decided not to vaccinate. Also, when she realized her baby was going to be primarily formula-fed, with just a little bit of supplementary breast milk, I wonder if she spent any time reevaluating her decision.”

Immunity via breastfeeding only works if Mom has pertussis antibodies.

The male partners on MDC are sperm donors and wallets. They don’t get a say in whether or not Namaste is birthed in a meadow with a deer midwife, or whether Lotus gets her vaccines. The male partners are there to provide, and let all-knowing Gaia Mama tend to the littles.

These women are all about empowerment and enlightenment, yet the gender roles are often reminiscent of 1950.

The pertussis portion of the Tetanus, Diphtheria, acellular Pertussis (TDaP) is actually a conjugate vaccine. This means that specific surface antigens from the bacteria are purified and conjugated to a carrier protein, which then form the immunogens. It is also composed of the inactivated toxins, which once they are inactivated are called toxoids.

This is in contrast to the whole cell version, which as the name implies, uses a whole bacterial cell that has been deactivated (can no longer replicate), but induces a greater response

The whole cell version of the pertussis vaccine allegedly caused more adverse reactions, and therefore a new version was developed and implemented.

Attenuation is usually used to refer to the process whereby a live viral vaccine is weakened from its wild state.

The fact that the acellular version is composed of conjugates as well as toxoids is the reason that people can still contract the bacteria, but have a greatly reduced disease progression and presentation. However, this is also why vaccinated people can actually be carriers and therefore disease vectors.

And that is why all the talk about suing wrt to pertussis infection due to being unvaccinated is probably not well founded.

Also, based on the fact that people (up to 20% of the population) can be asymptomatic transient carriers would lend credibility to the idea that you can be unvaccinated or have waning immunity and contract pertussis and not have any symptoms. It is probably a much more complex eqn of genetics and environment (namely microbiome) that influences disease presentation and progression.

As it stands, the good people at pharma have funded numerous robust and rigorous studies proving unequivocally that there is no link between vaccines and autism. What?

In my field, I have observed autistics with a whole team of people working with them on their behavioral issues, including educators, behavior therapists, occupational therapists, MDs, support workers, parents and caregivers. Sadly, PCG, often such efforts fail and the behavioral issues

Practice being less emotional.

You initially dismissed my claim as suggesting that I am only arguing for evidence in favour of the thing or theory…. Bill, why would you jump to the conclusion that when I initially discussed having evidence in favour of something, I meant that counter evidence is not to be considered?

Anyway, your quote was one of me speaking praisingly of Anne Dachel.

Your quote was a wholesale endorsement of FUD and is further proof (as if any more were needed) that you are motivated by bad faith as well as plain stupidity.

@Alain
Alain what do you know about the wiring of the autistic brain that gives rise to its symptoms. Further, how much of this would show up on MRI or DTC scans? Also, do you think that studying cases like Ida would provide us with vital clues about this wiring. Here we have a boy showing all the hallmarks of low functioning autism, but he is obviously so very intelligent.

My grandmother’s oldest brother was about that same age when he died of pertussis. Her parents then had a second child who died of pneumonia.

Despite moving halfway round the world, despite four healthy children and eight grandchildren, their mother mourned those children for over sixty years, to the very end of her days, and their shadow lay over the family forever.

I always say, the difference between a solidly pro-vax family and an antivaxxer is this: We remembered. Other families have stories just as ugly, but they never talked about it. Perhaps it just hurt too much.

Thanks for posting the link in 192, I never knew the distinction between the two.

Interesting that the range of inactivated toxin is 10-46.8, I wonder if that is just between different manufacturers or what the deal is?

@Spectator–if you are going to get a booster, you definitely want the one with the lower case letters, which signifies lower toxin quantity. from the link that Narad found:

Children under the age of 7 who are given Tdap in the initial immunization series may not respond adequately and may need to be revaccinated. Adults
who receive the DTaP vaccine with higher antigen quantities do not need revaccination but may have more
adverse effects from the vaccine and have an increased chance of a sore arm at the vaccination site.

Where can we find the journal publications where Dr. Blaylock stated this ‘immuno-excito-toxicity’ theory and provided the evidence from which it’s been dervived?

I wasted a lot of my time a few years ago looking closely at Blaylock’s work. He displays the the usual antivaccine dishonesty, and twisting of the truth – his analysis of the Simpsonwood conference is appallingly dishonest, for example claiming that premature newborns were excluded from the Verstraeten study to hide the effects of thimerosal, when quite clearly their rate of neurological problems is greater than that of term babies, and would be an obvious confounder, which is clearly explained if you read the transcript. This was one of my first encounters with the sheer dishonesty that seems to be second nature to antivaxxers, and I was shocked, which seems naive to me today.

I have mentioned here before an example of Blaylock’s ‘science’. He quotes (in several articles, wade through whale.to or Mercola’s site if you have the stomach) this study as evidence of the dangers of thimerosal. From whale.to (I won’t link, on principle):

The study found that glutamate uptake is inhibited by methylmercury concentrations greater than 5 µmol/L, which is equivalent to 1,000 µg/L.

Maximal mean blood concentrations of the less toxic ethylmercury in children post vaccination were 5.7 µg/L the day after vaccination, dropping to baseline levels after 30 days. I think the problem here is obvious. I could cite a dozen common substances found in food and drink in concentrations that would be toxic if they were 175 times greater.

Mercury is heavy and has a high molecular weight, which is why there is a 200-fold difference between micromoles and micrograms. I suspect that Blaylock knows that laypersons will be easily confused by this difference and will assume that 5 µmol/L is similar to 5 µg/L. If someone has to twist the truth to make it seem to support his position, I tend to dismiss him as a crank.

Someone above suggested that posts that acknowledged the anti-vaccine viewpoint and were supportive rather than critical might be more productive than the usual acerbic tone we all use and love at RI. I’m (un)happy to report this approach was unsucessful. I tried to post in a thread under the “I’m not vaccinating” folder at Mothering.com in reply to a mom who was having second thoughts about leaving her infant unvaccinated to pertussis. The post was removed when I checked back in withing 24 hours. Furthermore my login “Privileges” to post on the thread had been removed. I got a courteous message in a PM explaining why my post was not appropriate for the forum and might be better posted elsewhere. Here is the post:

Apeydef,

I applaud you on your efforts to seek out more information on the risks and benefits of vaccination. As you are clearly aware, pertussis continues to circulate in children and adults, and it can cause serious illness and even death. Unfortunately, vaccinating has not fully eliminated this dangerous infection from our communities. I encourage you to seek out more information about the risks of pertussis, and weigh them against the risks of the DTaP vaccine.

I’m curious as why you are asking for advice here. Are you really looking for reliable information (on an internet chatboard? you cant be serious!), or are you seeking validation for a decision you’ve already made? Think about it. If it is the later, then you are in the right place. If it is the former, then let me humbly suggest you ask your child’s pediatrician. Chances are good that he/she actually has first hand experience with treating pertussis, as well as administering the vaccine, and can give you good advice.

To the moderator: please note that I have not come out for or against vaccines. I am merely pointing out that internet chat boards are not a good place to look for reliable information.

Good luck with your decision.
BP

“The problem with facts on the internet is that they are so easy to fabricate.” — Abraham Lincoln—

Clearly the moderator is not secure that they could win in an argument that wasn’t rigged.
(and thanks for whoever here taught me that Abe Lincoln quote. Its a gem).

You are saying that a husband should divorce his wife for being an anti-vaxxer. You are saying he should just take his kid behind her back and vaccinate him against her wish. You are saying he should stop sleeping with her.

Let’s try a thought experiment.

Let’s say you married a woman and had a child with her. She’d always seemed to hate vaccination as much as you do: she refused to get a flu shot or TDaP, for instance.

But when the child came, she changed her tune. She went out and got the flu shot and TDaP herself — to protect the child, she said — and wanted you to do the same. Worse yet, she started reading online and concluded that the evidence was that the child needed to be vaccinated. She got the child its DTaP and it cried all afternoon. Now she says she’s going to bring the child to date on all vaccines on the schedule.

What would you do, Greg? Would you consider divorce so you could get custody and “protect” your child? Would you consider not sleeping with her to ensure that there would be no more children for her to “harm” via vaccination?

Seriously, what would you do, Greg?
——————————————————————————–

I would talk my wife into entering couples counselling, so that we may come to an understanding –compromise– on the vaccine issue.

So, again, disrespecting your partner by vaccinating your child behind her back is definitely not acceptable. Punishing her, by withholding sex, amounts to hostility that is not conducive to a successful relationship. And, divorcing her, and thereby depriving your child of a mother and a father will likely be a disastrous solution.

I’d like to bring out a point regarding ABA. Michelle Dawson (PhD…) carefully reviewed every publications and clinical trials of ABA for autistic. None of them was found out to be complying with the human research subject guideline of the declaration of Helsinki. None.

As long as the goals of such therapy are to render the autist indistinguishable from its peers (and lilady, I’ve seen you mention this in the past), such therapy won’t ever be compliant with the human research subject guideline of the declaration of Helsinki. And I’m not okay with it; autistics deserve better. Unfortunately, it is because of these lousy standard dating from the 60’s and 70’s that autistics have a bad reputation in research. Their right are being denied and I’ve been part of a research group who, for all of their failing, only do research according to the standard held by the declaration of Helsinki. Fully ethical research. And it should be a given.

Unfortunately, an ethical replacement of ABA is still in the work; and it couldn’t happen soon enough.

Greg: Again, guys, am I so off-base in claiming that the insinuation that is being made is crazy, irrational women are often prone to anti-vaxx woo, and they need their sober, rational husbands to set them straight?

And when insinuation becomes explicit statement, I now give you, PGP:

Narad: I think the reason there are so many more female anti-vaxxers is that women are discouraged from science tracks and trained to prioritize emotional reasoning. (Yet more reasons emotions are not good)
Therefore, you get a collision between emotions and logic, especially where children are concerned. I think the takeaway is that these women aren’t necessarily dumb, they just act like it. In my opinion, they ought to be discouraged from it. (Women being dumb in public is a *big* pet peeve of mine.)

@lilady – thank you for the link (comment #151) to CDC info on Tdap for adults! I have been trying to figure out whether I need to get a Tdap this pregnancy, as I did four years ago with my first. They say:

Pregnancy-related Recommendations
On October 24, 2012, the ACIP voted to recommend:

health care providers should administer Tdap during each pregnancy irrespective of the patient’s prior history of receiving Tdap. Optimal timing for Tdap administration is at 27 through 36 weeks gestation.

I’ll bring this to my next OB visit. I want to do whatever I can to reduce the risk of pertussis to the wee one. I’m curious, though: is the idea that the baby receives a measure of immunization in utero? It seems to be implied but I don’t want to simply assume. 🙂

And lurkers, not even Orac or any of his minions called out PGP for the blatantly misogynist comment at #128, including Narad who iit was addressed to. Their silence leads one to wonder whether they are in agreement.

I would talk my wife into entering couples counselling, so that we may come to an understanding –compromise– on the vaccine issue.

I appreciate the reasonable response to my question.

But the thing is, some people are absolutely convinced they’re right. Suppose your wife simply refused to compromise? And what would a compromise be, anyway? You think vaccination is a deliberate and vicious attack on a defenseless child and she (the hypothetical wife) thinks it a necessary health measure. How do you compromise on that? And if you can’t compromise, what do you do?

So, again, disrespecting your partner by vaccinating your child behind her back is definitely not acceptable.

I can’t think of an analogy to put you in that situation, but basically if you believed that your (hypothetical) wife was endangering your (hypothetical) child, and you could help keep the child safe by doing something behind her back, would you consider that unacceptable? When your child’s health and safety were on the line?

Punishing her, by withholding sex, amounts to hostility that is not conducive to a successful relationship.

But it wasn’t phrased as punishing her; it was phrased as avoiding the possibility of another child to be potentially victimized. Of course, it is possible for a man to ensure no further children without withholding sex, and that might be preferable.

And, divorcing her, and thereby depriving your child of a mother and a father will likely be a disastrous solution.

Yes and no. If she is stubbornly determined to endanger the child’s life, would it be better for the child to be separated from her? Perhaps visitation with the mother would be better in the long run.

Note that throughout I have referred to your hypothetical wife and hypothetical child. This is meant as a way of illustrating what people were thinking about and not as a comment on any actual persons or situations.

*Sighs* Greg, once again, the point flew miles over your head. Women are trained to act irrationally by society; every authority figure discourages them from rational logical tracks. Of course a lot of women find it hard to overcome that conditioning; doesn’t have a thing to do with their intelligence. In fact, one of the great tragedies is that the smarter a woman is, the more likely she is to favor emotional reasoning.
I myself have mostly managed to overcome emotion, but it’s a struggle, and I owe the local music scene a great debt for their help. There is nothing like detonating one’s emotions at a concert.

Alain: Michele Dawson is not a PhD; she is a former postal worker with a high school diploma, who was first diagnosed as an adult with an ASD…because of her severe self-injurious behaviors. She is presently not employed…She’s on disability in Canada.

You (and Dawson) are mistaken about ABA-type programs not meeting the Helsinki Declaration:

@ Jessica S. You’re pregnant…how wonderful ! The ACIP and the CDC have really been on top of the relatively new (licensed 2005) Tdap vaccine…with recommendations, as the many studies are reported in medical journals:

You expanding on your comment #129 was not totally unnecessary. When talking about that society imprints on you/expects of you vs your own abilities, it’s better to be more precise than not enough.
It’s very easy to come with a comment a bit off when talking about gender-related issues. See Renate #9 comment for an example.

To lurkers: I – and I guess, others regulars here – read PGP comments as mostly “sisters, use your brain, damn it”. Also, I know she is merely – if strongly – expressing her opinions. I may disagree, or not, but it would be wrong of me to bash her for this.
Quite a bit different from some joker throwing wife-beating accusations for the shock value.

OK, I’m borderline tone trolling, so I go back lurking and let all of you resume your discussions.

@PGP
Women are trained to act irrationally by society; every authority figure discourages them from rational logical tracks. Of course a lot of women find it hard to overcome that conditioning; doesn’t have a thing to do with their intelligence. In fact, one of the great tragedies is that the smarter a woman is, the more likely she is to favor emotional reasoning.

—————————————————————————–
(must learn blockquote)

PGP, being that you are a woman, I am surprised that you would come up with this nonsense. Indeed, I agree that men and women are different and think differently, but to summarize this difference as women being more apt to let emotions govern their problem solving is severely misleading, and akin to ‘women are from venus –men are from mars’ chauvinist babble. Further, to say that this thinking was conditioned in them, and thereby implying that women are merely passive robots is also wrong and deeply insulting.

PGP, the truth is: there is no evidence that estrogen or testosterone has a monopoly on logical thinking. For every example of women allowing emotions to rule their problem solving, perhaps we can find counter examples of men doing the same. Let’s reflect on that old joke of men who are lost that will drive around for eternity before they stop and ask for directions: Is this not a case of testosterone and ego –emotions– getting in the way of logical problem solving?

And, Helianthus, I think you are also a woman. You agree with PGP’s nonsense?

Sure we can teach the autistic brain at any age, but can we teach it to operate as a NT one. From my end working with autistics, I am not seeing this.

Autistic people can be trained to pass as neurotypicals, but that’s not the same as turning an autistic brain into a neurotypical one. You may as well ask if we could turn a speedboat into a motorcycle.

I’m not sure my comment was that much of. Females have used a like-wise tactic to keep their husbands from going to war, so why not use the same tactic if someone, whether it is the male, or female partner, if he or she is doing something harmfull to a child, like not vaccinating it. It’s just a way to say, I don’t want to have another child to suffer, like our current child is suffering, if that suffering can be prevented by vaccination.

to summarize this difference as women being more apt to let emotions govern their problem solving is severely misleading.

And once again the point goes blasting over your head at Mach speeds. Politicalguineapig was saying that society straitjackets women into that role.

Further, to say that this thinking was conditioned in them, and thereby implying that women are merely passive robots is also wrong and deeply insulting.

We are all, to a greater or lesser degree, products of the society to which we belong. As a middle class white english-speaking male Saffer who was too young to vote in our first democratic elections by a few months, I have education and experiences that make me in many ways different to e.g. somebody from the US Midwest, or a Tokyo native, or someone from a Brazilian favela.

Gerg – I look forward to your posts on AoA telling them that their “recovery” stories are bunk and biomedical treatments are quackery.

Come back when you’ve completed your assignment.

Yeah Lawrence, the ‘recovery’ stories are likely bunk and the biomedical interventions are also likely quackery. Although, I do consider that some of the biomedical treatments may indeed relieve some of the typical symptoms that are associated with autism, such as stomach issues. These treatments, however, will in no way cure autism, if this is the suggestion that is being made. And, Lawrence, I have encountered others at AoA who share my cynicism.

But, Lawrence, you know what else is quackery? Believing that a few vested interest studies that looked into only a few vaccine ingredients, and comparing vaxxed kids to vaxxed kids solves anything. Indeed there is qackery on both sides. Time will reveal that next to the tragedy of the epidemic amount of kids that are maimed by vaccines, the next biggest tragedy was that science was so sadly and mercilessly sacrificed.

I get tired of seeing the “pertussis vaccine doesn’t work” being used by anti-vaxxers. It does work. There has been a whooping cough outbreak in southeast Tucson (http://azstarnet.com/news/local/whooping-cough-cases-in-pima-county-at–year-high/article_645dd5c6-6e98-50c7-8d28-1e627f897974.html) Our outbreak here is due to well-documented declining vaccine rates over the last 10 years that I have seen as a pediatrician in SE Tucson. Too many people have either read very incorrect misinformation on the internet or been scared by anti-vaccine friends and neighbors into not vaccinating and we are now seeing what happens when herd immunity is being lost. The vaccine we give now is as effective as it has been, but vaccines always work better when vaccine rates are higher. We’ve probably had about 30 school-aged children now with pertussis in our area. I would estimate overall vaccine rates in our area among children to be between 90-95%. This is lower than school rates and it is lower because I believe we have a higher proportion of unvaccinated children in the home schooled population (which has been well documented in studies). Compare our pertussis outbreak to a Colorado City, on the northern Arizona border. They have horribly bad (try ~ 50%) pertussis vaccination rates and they had almost 600 (!) cases of whooping cough last year (http://directorsblog.health.azdhs.gov/?p=4268). Additionally, the 2010 California pertussis outbreak (over 9000 cases with 10 infants too young to be vaccinated dying from pertussis) has been analyzed and found that where there was clear clustering of pertussis cases where there was also clustering of higher non-vaccination rates (http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/…/4/624.full.html). When too many people opt out of vaccinating their children, there are clear health-related consequences.

What I think is also happening is that we are not truly tracking how many children are not vaccinated, due to the fact that almost all states (I believe MN is the exception) do not track vaccines for homeschooled children which are now almost 4% of our children. For instance

1. Homeschooling parents’ practices and beliefs about childhood immunizations (Vaccine. 2012 Feb 1;30(6):1149-53. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2011.12.019. Epub 2011 Dec 14.). Only 38% of homeschooling families had fully vaccinated their children, 56% had partially vaccinated and 6% completely unvaccinated–this is worrisome that 62% of homeschooled children (in PA) are not fully vaccinated and a lot worse than for non-homeschooled children.

3. Also here is report on 2 cases of tetanus in homeschooled children (Vaccine-preventable disease among homeschooled children: two cases of tetanus in Oklahoma. Pediatrics. 2013 Dec;132(6):e1686-9. doi: 10.1542/peds.2013-1636. Epub 2013 Nov 11.)

4. Also here is a nice blog on the concerns of homeschooling and vaccination rates and even simply knowing who is and isn’t vaccinated in the homeschooled community: http://www.patheos.com/…/homeschooling-vaccinations-and….

Given that clustering of non-vaccinated children is contributory to these outbreak, we need to know where those children are, and not having a clue about vaccination rates among homeschooled children basically negates the ability of any public health department to truly find those clusters. That may be serving as reservoirs for vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks like pertussis.

I thank lilady for countering some of the inaccurate statements being made about applied behavior analysis. I have been practicing for over 20 years. My applied training followed my doctoral studies and occurred at Johns Hopkins in the Kennedy Krieger Institute. Though I initially specialized in treating severe self-injury, aggression, and other problem behavior (with over 90% of patients meeting their treatment goals, not pumping my tires, just implementing best practices for assessing and treating problem behavior). For the last 15 years I have worked somewhat exclusively with children/adolescents/adults with autism. I have consistently encountered people misrepresenting behavior analysis. It is not reliant on aversive control (in fact best practice in treating behavioral excesses relies on “function-based treatment” which involves identifying the function that behavior serves and establishing appropriate replacement behavior) though Lovaas’ early work did involve the application of painful aversives. However, even those using ABA in the Lovaas model do not rely on aversives now and produce similar outcomes with substantial gains in adaptive behavior and decreased levels of behavioral excesses (see, Sallows & Graupner, 2005). In addition to the Cochrance Review I note (and link to) above in comment #180, there have been meta-analyses of comprehensive ABA treatment (i.e., targeting many skills; e.g., Eldevik, Hastings, Jahr, & Hughes, 2012) and focused interventions (i.e., targeting a single or limited number of responses; e.g., Vanderkerken et al., 2013) that show significant effects obtained with procedures developed/implemented by behavior analysts. One study suggested that ABA alone produces superior results to “blending” it with other approaches (Howard et al., 2005).

I certainly respect the opinions of adults with autism about treatment but they are only opinions (and like a$$holes, everyone has one and most of them stink unless they are based on data). That said, the autism community at large has been behind a movement in the US to obtain insurance reimbursement for ABA services. Autism insurance reform (regardless of the problems you may have with Autism Speaks, their governmental affairs branch operates independently from their family services and science branches) has been obtained largely through the efforts of Autism Speaks. There are 34 states in which insurance reform has been passed and parents in those states can obtain access. Licensure of behavior analysts is thus gaining traction and it is important that consumers have a means of identifying competent providers (and having a means of lodging formal complaints for incompetent or unethical practice). 13 states currently have some form of regulation (mostly licensure) in place. Licensure certainly does not mean that a field is empirically supported, only research can determine that and I believe the evidence is fairly clear that ABA is evidence-based practice. There are many who have a vested interest in restricting the right to practice of behavior analysis (clinical psychologists generally have 0 exposure to behavior analysis and no competence in it; e.g., the Massachusetts licensing exam has 0 behavior analytic content) and behavior analysts have to strongly advocate for competencies being based on industry standards. I certainly would be surprised if Gerg is a competent behavior analyst and even if he is a credentialed/licensed provider, his behavior on this forum leads me to believe that he does not engage in evidence-based practice which is an offense that would be the proper subject of a complaint. If he practices on one of those states with a regulatory mechanism or holds a BACB-sanctioned credential. Please dismiss him as representing my field.

@ BA: No need to thank me…I just want to explain how beneficial ABA Therapy, begun in early childhood and implemented by trained therapists, does work for children, who have severe self-injurious behaviors.

(Watch for the anecdote)

Thirty-five years ago, I attended seminars taught by behavioral psychologists to learn the theory and implementation of a “Behavior Modification” program (a forerunner of ABA), to modify (and extinguish) the self-injurious behaviors that my two- year-old son was displaying. He was diagnosed with profound mental retardation with “autistic like behaviors” and cerebral palsy (spastic quadriplegia) under the DSM II Diagnostic Criteria.

Even back then, there were no aversives (no cattle prods, no pinching, slapping or inhalation of noxious substances); his “reward” was a drop of Hershey’s chocolate syrup on his tongue, because he was unable to chew and swallow Cheerios (the usual “reward”)

It was an intensive (and expensive) program offered to ~ 30 children and their families by my State’s Office of Developmental Disabilities, funded through a Family Services Grant. I knew most of the parents and children who had the benefit of this program and it benefited every child to varying degrees (a lessening of SIBs or as was the case of my son, total extinguishing of SIBs).

There was a situation in Canada a few years back, which, IMO, was a travesty, involving an “intervener” in a Supreme Court case, where parents sought coverage for their childrens’ ABA therapy. The “intervener’s” arguments against funding were based on “The Helsinki Declaration”, an autistic person’s right to not undergo treatment for SIBs and the long-discarded practice of using aversives. Consequently, coverage for ABA therapies are not offered in Canada.

I’m not an “Autism Speaks” fan, but I do give AS credit for advocating for ABA, and providing funding grants to train ABA behavioral specialists.

Our particular concern regarding the intense world theory centers on drastic suggested treatments for individuals with autism, namely withdrawing stimulation during infancy. The Markrams do not merely hint at such interventions, but explicitly spell them out. Yet if the theory is incorrect, these treatments could be damaging. As studies of Romanian orphans have strikingly shown, insufficient stimulation and impoverished neuronal input in early development are damaging to children’s social, cognitive and emotional functioning.

To counter that, proponent of ABA suggest a 40 hours work week for the child which is just way too much (if not insane). Is it in the best interest for the child? How does it compare to the Helsinki’s declaration that the best interest of the child be served with a 40 hours treatment for which the child don’t even sustain concentration and learning for at most 20 hours?

About the prospect that a divorce would be appropriate if a spouse was endangering the child by withholding something as important as immunizations. It could be a good opportunity to get an attorney and maybe even a judge involved to counter the irrationality of a woo infested spouse. Most states require a “Parenting Plan” in a divorce which spells out many aspects of the child’s care to include a medical care plan and medical decision making. A court sanctioned document could be quite handy.

Alain (in re comment 234): The term “honoris causa” means that it was an _honorary_ degree, awarded as a mark of esteem, not from studies. People can get honorary degrees for giving gifts to schools, or giving a speech, or because they know someone at the school. In other words, while Michele Dawson can technically be referred to as “Dr.”, it *not* necessarily based upon her knowledge of subject matter. Anyone who uses an honorary title as proof of scholarship or expertise is basically lying.

“I’d like to bring out a point regarding ABA. Michelle Dawson (PhD…) carefully reviewed every publications and clinical trials of ABA for autistic. None of them was found out to be complying with the human research subject guideline of the declaration of Helsinki. None.

As long as the goals of such therapy are to render the autist indistinguishable from its peers (and lilady, I’ve seen you mention this in the past), such therapy won’t ever be compliant with the human research subject guideline of the declaration of Helsinki.”

I suggest that you read Dawson’s “Intervener” paper, to see how she based her arguments on the Helsinki Declaration (which was not and is not applicable in the decision to fund or implement ABA therapies), her arguments against ABA because of the early history of abusive aversives…and her objection to parents making treatment decisions on behalf of their children.

I guess a shorter version of my comment #223 would have been:
“Greg is not the only one with troubles understanding your point. Would you have time to extrapolate?”.
It didn’t help that LW produced another interpretation. Now that you explained your meaning, I am sure I get it.

I guess I also get the point more easily because my opinion evolved during my time following this thread. At first, I was against the suggestions of the father being more confrontational, out of fear of reaching a breaking point.
But as many people pointed, the relationship between these two parents is already very lopsided, and if the father folds, that’s not going to go any better. They are past the point of a diplomatic resolve. Any compromise would be just compromising the child’s health.

If I was co-parenting with someone who refused to vaccine my children despite being presented with the evidence, I would consider that equivalent to their insisting on driving drunk with the kids in the car. It’s putting their health and lives at risk. Divorce and sole custody are extreme measures, but this would be an extreme situation. i would also do some serious soul-searching to explore why I would be in a relationship with such a whacko.

Thanks for that. I think that it’s important that readers realise that ABA is not just random, practitioner-driven intervention but a process which has been studied, refined and that is evidence-based.

Similarly, people often spout on about ‘psychotherapy’ not being scientfic, mixing it up with psychoanalysis and other pop culture-derived stereotypes- like encounter groups- largely suggested by movies and television: there IS evidence-based therapy ( CBT) which has been similarly researched and shown to be effective in many situations.

HOWEVER neither of these systems are 100% effective for all problems encountered: for a start, readers may consult the wiki-p on both ABA and CBT to get an idea of the scope which each encompasses and from whence they sprang.

-btw- for the record: although I have been trained in CBT, I do not consider myself to be a practitioner currently; what I do is related though, that’s why I call myself a ‘counsellor’- as “glorified tutor/ social graces instructor’ takes up too much space. I’m not entirely joking.

Readers should contrast what BA expresses in contradistiction to he wot calls himself “BT” **

@ lilady #238, as to services in Canada, that depends on province. Ontario provides ABA services and expanded the scope of treatment supported in 2011.

@DW #249, many people call psychotherapy as lacking in evidence as “psychotherapy” is often used in very narrow sense, not as an interaction between a trained therapist and a client (defined broadly). This narrow meaning is usually tied to a specific school of therapy. Those that are outside of the bounds empirical evidence are rightly criticized. Something like CBT (mentioned above) has an evidence base as do many of the other “schools” of psychotherapy but some do not.

@ BA: My purpose for posting back at Alain was to set the record straight about Michelle Dawson and her actions in the British Columbia Supreme Court case, where parents of autistic kids petitioned the Court for coverage for ABA therapy.

Most parents of autistic kids are not “curebies”, who subject their children to invasive, dangerous “biomedical interventions”. These parents want to ameliorate or extinguish SIBs…no different than the physical therapy sessions that I funded for my son for the 28 years prior to his death, June 2004…and no different than the many times he was hospitalized for status epilepticus and internal bleeds. (I was his Behavior Modification “therapist” and I footed the bills for his twice weekly PT sessions).

Behavior Modification was a spectacular success for my son, whose SIBs left him bruised and scratched. (He looked like an abused child). I never expected him to progress intellectually, to talk or to ambulate; I wanted him to stop beating himself up and to interact with his environment.

The self-promoting, diagnosed in adulthood, Michelle Dawson, decided to “intervene” in the British Columbia Supreme Court case, using straw men arguments and her unique interpretaton of the Helsinki Declaration to deny autistic kids and their parents funding for ABA therapy:

I *was* going to add that certain therapies might be useful in you want to explore your innermost being, understand which archetypes / feeling-toned complexes are most prominent as guiding functions or if you are an artist or writer in search of subject matter/ material.

A few of us minions are starting to complete each others’ comments.

@ Johnny:

Interestingly enough, we had a long-time,nym-changing/ gender-bending visitor here whose real name was Greg Fitz——,an Aussie chiro who was a natural hygeine enthusiast and follower of Drs Shelton (IIRC) and
Walter ( no relation).

@lilady, I’m well aware of M. Dawson and her activities but as an advocate for the right to practice I am inclined to not attack such persons and their actions. I have, however, had to counter her misinformation more than I care to remember. I applaud you and the many parents who have worked so hard to effectively treat challenging behavior or fight for effective services. Your son was lucky to have such a dedicated mom. I wish all children with disabilities (or all children period) had such dedicated parents. They are like gold.

@Alain
In as much as autism may be a condition of sensory and emotional overload, I agree a therapy such as ABA based on restrictions and rigid compliance with rules would appear savage. Still, being that autism is often a severe disability, something needs to be done. Perhaps, indeed, we need to explore other treatment options that are less antagonizing, and maybe even yielding better efficacy.

@Tbruce

“Nice going. You’ve totally blown your feminism cred.”

No feminist cred is sought here. To the extent that feminism often tries to pass off women as being the same as men, I am not a big fan.

What I simply wanted to point out is the ridiculousness of PGP’s assertion that women essentially are pitiful victims of infused emotional programing by men, to the point that it warps their logical decision making abilities. This to me is exceedingly belittling and insulting to women. Even more astonishing is that so many individuals here, especially women, would allow the comment to pass without even a whimper. It just goes to show how committed you guys are at protecting the party’s agenda.

Yet, to be honest, I am starting to not take PGP so serious. I am sensing a certain ‘disturbness’ about her. I sincerely don’t mean this as an insult — just an observation.

Renate: Females have used a like-wise tactic to keep their husbands from going to war, so why not use the same tactic

I noticed something here that I am having a little trouble understanding where it’s emanating from. What’s with the female VCADODers here dumping on other women? Perhaps we can take this up when I return.

Argh – clumsy iPhone typing. I was trying to say that I’m psyched to see there may be a benefit to the newborn. One less thing on my mind. You guys are such a great resource, and a great source of entertainment, to boot! 🙂

I believe I started this, as for some time he persistently addressed me as “Kerb” and I tried to subtly point this out by calling him “Gerg”. It didn’t work, and I gave up, but it does seem to have stuck. Sorry about that.

Of course I have it. What do you think they pay me for?
Actually, it was just bouncing off ORD’s comment.

And don’t call me George.

@ Helianthus:

You know that’s not a bad analogy. If by refuse you mean anti-vax memes, tall tales, mottos and ‘evidence’,

re the creature’s comment about women sceptics:
although I haven’t tallied all [email protected] RI and subjected them to statistical analysis YET,
I would venture that we as a group are equal opportunity scoffers:
if an idiot woo-meister ( note it’s *meister* and not, “maitresse”) is spewing nonsense, it’ll be dealt with as surely as when an anti-vax *parent* ( although there are many TMs) or supporter does:
it should be noted that male anti-vaxxers are quite the low-hanging fruit @ RI:
Handley, Stone, Olmsted, Blaxill, Crosby, Blaylock, Hooker, Schecter, Carey, ANDY, Adams, Null, etc etc etc.
have all been ridiculed- often mercilessly- by Orac and/ or his minions.

I think that the anti-vax mothers are a bit of a special case BUT their carelessly avid proselytisation and tendency towards histrionics have nothing to do with being female-
it’s what they’ve learned from other pseudo-scientists and cranks desperate to garner attention on the internet.

Given that how exactly do you propose this be accomplished, greg? Be specific.

The current research indicates that genetic factors dominate and that autism begins in utero with atypical neural development, but unlike a genetic disorder like Tay Sachs thegenetic of autism are complex and no single or even multiple genetic factors which will confer autism have been determined such that we could take the same steps at preventing autism we do with respect to tay Sachs: prescreening prospective parents and performing prenatal genetic testing on fetuses to allow the parents to choose whether or not to carry an infant that will suffer Tay Sachs to term.

Michelle Dawson was awarded an “Honorary Degree”….for her “scholarship”? I’ve heard of college commencement speakers being awarded “Honorary Degrees” at commencement ceremonies.

Dawson was the only individual “intervener”, who intervened to prevent parents from receiving funding for ABA therapies for their children diagnosed with autism and other developmental disabilities. The basis of her Intervener status was her unique (and wrong) interpretation of the Helsinki Declaration…and perhaps because she is qualified because she practices cutting self-mutilation on herself.

I offered up some comments about ABA-type of therapy (Behavior Modification…a forerunner of ABA) and how successful that therapy was for my son to extinguish serious SIBs…yet, the one individual who “claims” to be a “developmental specialist working with adults diagnosed with ASDs” offered up no opinions.

“Recently, ASAT learned of material posted on the Web written by Michelle Dawson. While it is not ASAT’s usual policy to address every opinion on the Web that we find objectionable, fallacious, or dangerous, the level of animosity toward parents and professionals seeking Applied Behavior Analysis services for children is so high in this material, and the extent of misinformation regarding ABA seems, in our opinion, so misleading and harmful to families, that ASAT has elected to publish a response from someone on the “front lines:” a mother fighting for her children. Kit Weintraub, mother of Emily, 10, and Nicholas, 7, is a Board member of Families for Early Autism Treatment (FEAT), Wisconsin….”

Here’s the thing: say you knew the valedictorian of the high school you went to. They went to a good college, completed a four-year degree and had a career that indicates they’re highly intelligent. And then you met them years later, and found out they’re creationists. You might well wonder what went wrong.

The analogy isn’t perfect, but it serves to illustrate what I find so disconcerting about the leaders of Age of Autism and TMR. Most of these women are smart women- so why do they act so dumb? (There are a few exceptions, but I’m not going to name names.

They can certainly understand a biology textbook, if they bothered to pick one up. But they don’t. And then they go out in public and air their ‘theories’ and proceed to make their whole gender look bad. This is largely the same problem I have with certain female politicians. A man can make himself look like a fool and it only reflects on him. Women don’t have that luxury.

Finally, as regarding my politics; I absolutely believe that women *need* to start acting exactly like men. I believe that by the time I am fifty, women in the US will be back to the same place they were at the beginning of the nineteenth century, (annual baby, no voting rights, and roughly the same social standing as a house mouse) if we don’t amp up the aggression, give up on soft stuff like feelings, and split with religious groups and atheist groups, since neither really gives a crap about women. Also, jettisoning a few states would help. But getting rid of feelings and romance would help the cause a lot more, since one of the excuses given to keep women out of public life is that ‘they’re not rational.’
(I find atheist groups harder to forgive, since they should know better.)
Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

@PGP: you really are sad sometimes. Sorry. I *am* 50+, and believe me, things are moving forward. Sometimes glacially slowly. But I don’t ever believe we will be “at the beginning of the nineteenth century…” again. I’m so sorry you have no faith in your fellow humans.

@Jessica: Hang around. Just be ready to bolt for the door if someone starts talking about certain foods…

I am not an expert in ABA, and I don’t play one on TV. My knowledge of it is purely anecdotal but witnessed at first hand.
My autistic nephew, who at four seemed lost in his own private Idaho, communicated barely enough to meet his animal needs. He underwent an ABA program that, IIRC, went on for several years. I used to call him the hardest working four-year-old this side of a Pakistani rug factory. During that time, he was socialized enough to begin first grade at age 7 with an adult shadow. Today at 21 he is an accomplished horseman with a trophy from the Hampton Classic and competes in the Special Olympics as a figure skater. He graduated high school. He works six-hour days in a sheltered workshop that is a real for-profit business. Is all this due to ABA? Maybe not, but I saw his progress and I seriously doubt that the things he started doing during that time would have come about without it, or without some other program equally as time- and labor-intensive.

I think that you’re concerned about a scenario that may never come to pass ( at least, I hope!)
I remember the late 1970s- 1980s and yes, things were not so wonderful back then but even so, there were _variabilities_ in people’s views about gender-based roles and regional as well as national differences. One of my friends studied and later practised feminist psychotherapy- she still does. Another travelled all over the Middle East / India alone as a photographer of native craftspeople.

I would guess that you are basing your predictions on highly limited samples of groups in a very specific locale as well as television reports on rightist enclaves . I venture that you’d be pleasantly surprised if you visited the various loci of evil ™ in which I’ve attended universities or visited to be amongst like-minded folk. Believe me, you’ve heard of them.

Even if you can’t, acquaint yourself with different writers and bloggers or take a short trip ( and a walk on the wild side)-
perhaps to where our liberal brothers live ( ahem!)
Narad’s and Alain’s towns aren’t that far away from you.

Personally, I don’t feel especially feminine and don’t necessarily focus on purely feminist issues. I don’t feel really discriminated against- especially now.
I also feel that I have social power- which is due to my education, socio-economic status and interpersonal skills. If I do ever feel put-upon for WHATEVER reason, I tell whoever is pushing to lay off in no uncertain terms. I try to mimic my late father’s perfected style.

You can do the same: you’re perfectly capable and reasonably tough- that’s a compliment -btw-.
My only suggestion is that you speak more carefully about
groups you disagree with: be more clear about the fact that you’re talking about the extremes, *some* of them, not all etc. It’s alright to say what you mean in more complicated, finely honed language. What you might intend as hyperbole might be mistaken as prejudgment.

@PGP:
let me join with MI Dawn in responding to you.
Women in public life acting more like men is exactly what the world doesn’t need. We need to get away from the idea that stereotypical male behavior should somehow be the default mode for leadership, and not punish leaders who deviate from it. In a broader sense, everyone, leaders and public figures included, should be free to find their own style.
One of the common tropes in political puffery is some variation of “he made the tough choices”, or “it’s time for hardheaded solutions”. This translates out as “he has no conscience so he can throw strangers under the bus all day without losing a minute’s sleep.”
Maybe, just maybe, it’s time for softhearted sentimental decisions once in a while.
Like Dawn, I am “50+’, actually 60, and have been on the side of women’s progress all my life. I come from a family in which most of the women were professionals or at least had real jobs in the world. I went to female friends in school who intended to go on to higher education and careers. It never occurred to me that any woman would stay home by choice. I have seen the progress of women’s rights, women’s overcoming prejudices and preconceptions, and we are not going to go backward. My children’s generation is walking away from religion. They consider equal rights, equal pay, equal everything as a given, as a starting point and not as a destination.
The right-wing noises come mostly from those afraid to lose some real or imagined male privilege, but while they try to take a stand, the ground is sliding away under their feet. They won’t win.

Right. Mayer Eisenstein of Home First in Illinois. He had a “radio” show @ PRN and then switched to Natural News- I’m not sure if he’s still there. *Beaucoup de* woo.
I never saw the pirate costume ( AND I’M GLAD OF THAT)

MI Dawn: It’s not really that I have no faith in people. I just find it easier to expect the worst.

DW: Up until the 08 crash, I did expect some forward motion. Unfortunately bad economic times tends to lead to a more conservative populace. I think my best option is just to renew my passport, amass a lot of cash, and forget the US.
I should probably point out that I’m a lot younger than you, and therefore some political issues are more likely to affect my life while not causing so much as a ripple in yours.

ORD: Maybe, just maybe, it’s time for softhearted sentimental decisions once in a while.

Somehow, I doubt any politician who did that would ever be elected again. And, while I admire your optimism, I don’t share it.

Lilady: The main things that concern me about ABA is that its creator supported reparative therapy for homosexuals, and the attitude of everything being a nail. Yes, it appears to work, but let’s not forget that for a long time, Freudian analysis and therapies ‘worked’ too.
I think that other methods need to be developed, so ABA can rise or fall on its own merits, not just by being the only option.

@ pgp: You are referring to aversive therapies, not ABA therapies that are helping to ameliorate or extinguish self-injurious behaviors in kids diagnosed with ASDs. Please don’t fall into the trap set by Michelle Dawson, whose testimony was chock full of inaccuracies about ABA therapy and about the Helsinki Declaration.

“it’s time for hardheaded solutions”
J. K. Galbraith went on about this once or twice — the way that exponents of a certain approach of austere economics like to describe themselves as ‘hard-headed’, as if cranial rigidity is somehow more desirable or more likely to be correct than the alternative.

MI Dawn: It’s not really that I have no faith in people. I just find it easier to expect the worst.

But that isn’t all you do. You also punish people who are trying hard to give their best, when you let them know that you’re going to lump them in with everyone who gives the worst – simply because that’s easier for you than acknowledging that individuals make their own decisions.

I can think of several regulars whom you’ve essentially slapped in the face, because if you spend *any* amount of time reading their comments, you can tell they’re kind, thoughtful people who try their hardest to use their intelligence to guide them in living responsible, good lives – and you say “Oh, people who live in $STATE are selfish idiots, with no exceptions to speak of”, and slap them in the face.

And then you defend your behavior by protesting that it’s true, there really ARE some awful people in $STATE, ignoring the fact that there are also good people.

What’s with you VCADODers and your obsession with kissing PGP’s arse? How much more holding her hand and weeping are you planning to do? PGP is a brat, and worse, she is a wimp! For all her fiery talk, she is merely using this feminism topic as a screen.

Hey PGP, why don’t you do us all a favour — including yourself — and tell us what’s really bothering you?

Do you REALLY believe that birth control and abortion will become outlawed in the US ?

I seriously don’t think that that is going to happen although the rightists would have you fear that. It might be true that there have been increasing laws to restrict or curtail abortion services around the US. I DO think that there will be LOCAL differences in accessibility to abortion.

Do you really think that places like NY and California will witness and tolerate this? Look who they elect as mayors and governors.

I agree with OR Dave. “Things have changed”**
Remember just a few years ago, the US right was scaring voters about the possibility of same sex marriage…. and now?
You’ll probably also witness legal marijuana soon in most of the more progressive places

PGP can be a little abrasive in the way she states her opinions, but it is a fact, for example, that abortion has been effectively outlawed in large swaths of the United States. If a woman can’t afford to take a couple of weeks off work, fly to the coast, and wait out the waiting periods that some even of those more liberal areas have enacted, she can’t get an abortion legally. The Republicans are going after birth control next.

Look at what’s happening in a solid blue state like Wisconsin. They voted in Scott Walker, and he has completely sold the state to the Koch brothers. State after state that vote solidly Democratic in national elections have solid, unshakable Republican majorities in their Congressional delegations and Legislatures. They control redistricting, and will gerrymander districts to make sure that continues.

More and more egregious voter suppression laws are being passed essentially everywhere, some of the most restrictive in a solidly blue state like Pennsylvania.

They have an enormous advantage in the Senate, where 1/3 of the population elects 2/3 of the Senate, they control and will continue to control the House due to gerrymandering, they have a lock on many state legislatures where the presidential vote would lead you to expect a Democratic majority, and they are absolutely dedicated to rolling back every advance we’ve made socially, politically, and economically, in the last century.

Unless people are willing to literally rebel, they will get away with it. They are confident, they are relentless, and they will stop at nothing to get their way. They know that none of these regressive laws they pass will get people out to fight—they saw a Presidential election blatantly stolen in 2000 (and less blatantly stolen in 2004), and the people did nothing. Will a waiting period for abortion here, vaginal ultrasound there, a 60% Democratic vote returning a 60% Republican congressional delegation everywhere get people out in the street to roll them back? Fat chance.

I agree with you. And I can see why she’s upset as she lives in one of the areas that is threatened by new laws.

But don’t you think that there will be backlash- esp about birth control? And possibly, technological innovations that make abortion less necessary- like the ‘morning-after pill”?

In the US, abortion was once universally illegal ( 40 years ago?). I hope it never goes back to that- Canada and Mexico will get richer and young women will have additional hurdles to jump and planes to catch – and pay for.

Unless you have actual evidence demonstrating the existence of a casual association between routine childhood immunization and the development of Autim spectrum disorders exists there is no reason to predict parents choosing not to vaccinate their children will prevent even s single case of autism from occurring. All you can be confident you’re doing is placing children at far greater risk of contracting the infectious diseases childhood vaccination protects again.

Unless of course you are aware of actual evidence supporting your belief that vaccination places a child at greater risk of developing an ASD.

Do you? If so, please share it with the rest of us. If not, youll need to come up with a diferent preventive plan (i.e., one that might actually work).
So unless you’ve got evidence demonstrating the existence of such a causal association

Denice: I hope you’re right about the backlash, but I’m not sanguine about it. I happen to live in the first state to legalize abortion in 1970 (“Don’t labor under a misconception—vote for Proposition 20”), so I’ve been fooled by being overoptimistic in the past…once burned, twice shy.

Altho’ I believe that abortion should be available on demand- i.e. not requiring jumping through the restrictive hoops which you mentioned- I also think that women should take it upon themselves to both understand and use birth control- which can also prevent STD transmission. Don’t expect men to do all the hard work/ heavy lifting.

Of course, there will- unfortunately- always be rape, coercion and birth control failure – we can’t eliminate that: I’m not talking about the relatively rare occurences but the more commonplace ones.There are OTC methods available to women as well as longer term rx methods. And setting limits- not ‘going along’ if it isn’t to be safe sex.

I speak from experience and not only as a counsellor. I’ve had no abortions and no pregnancies ever. It’s called ‘choice’.

@Denice Walter (and others)
I remember Roe v Wade and trying to come to terms with the ethical and legal issues.
My personal assessment was that abortion is never a good choice, but sometimes it’s the best choice available.
I also adopted three children from a clinic that was trying to offer young mothers an alternative to abortion.
When the high New York abortion rate flap came up a few weeks ago, it occurred to me that science-fiction author Lois McMaster Bujold may have had a good idea for her fictional Beta Colony.
All girls at age 14 are given a contraceptive implant, get their hymen surgically clipped to eliminate the pain from the first intercourse and get their ears pierced as a sign they are available.
Throw in an HPV shot and a liberal supply of condoms to reduce transmission of STD’s and we could probably eliminate 90% of the abortions in the U.S. each year (just a wild guess, I don’t have a citation.)
But, of course it’s probably unconstitutional, would never happen politically even if it were and the Catholic archbishop who was decrying the abortions certainly wouldn’t support it.
But, it helps clarify the sort of goal we should aim for if we really want to reduce abortions.
I saw a reference a few days ago that the rate is actually declining:http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/abortion-pregnancy-rate-decline-u-s-study-article-1.1600676

Some of the restrictions being bandied about in the state legislatures disturb me, but I remain hopeful that we won’t be returning to Peyton Place in my lifetime.

Kathryn: That is frankly one of my concerns about ABA. It has the potential to be hugely abusive, and a lot of adults lack any sympathy at all for autistic kids, including people who work with autistic kids. (See Greg’s comments, though I hope he’s lying about that.) There’s a lot of potential for things to go wrong.

lilady: Thing is, one NT person’s idea of ‘helpful’ may seem unhelpful or abusive to an autistic person. See my comment above, as well. As for Michelle Dawson, I think she’s got a bit of an idee fix, and needs to dump the ‘Helsinki Protocol’ part of her argument,’ she’s got a point. Autistic people need to have a say in the design of support programs.

Dammit people, after we maim countless kids through a out of control vaccination program , we need something — anything! — to say that we are making them better!

And your evidence that the childhood vacination program is 1) out of control, or 2) maims countless kids, would be…what, exactly?
Oh, that’s righ.: You don’t have any.

Greg has made it perfectly clear that he pays lip service to part of the Dark Ages JTB episteme, and his chosen beliefs trump reality. In particular, he only allows evidence that supports his chosen beliefs (he usually skips that part of JTB anyway), and pays no attention to the Truth™ clause of JTB when it conflicts with what he has decided to believe.
Since he has decided to believe that VPDs are good ’cause Vaccines are Bad, he has no need for evidence, and thus you don’t need any steekin’ evidence from him either.

Kathryn and pgp: You both are confusing behavioral programs to eliminate “self-stimming”, with early identification and early intervention programs that provide multiple therapies including physical, occupational, speech and language therapies…and ABA Therapy, that has a proven track record of ameliorating/extinguishing SIBs

Michele Dawson was “diagnosed” as having an ASD when she was an adult…and after she had difficulties on her job as a postal worker. Her difficulties when she was employed as a postal worker stemmed from her practice of self mutilation (cutting):

How about providing your legal opinion about ABA with regard to the Helsinki Declaration?

Kathryn and pgp: Are you familiar with the Autism Self-Advocacy Network, founded by Ari Ne’eman and their advocacy activities on behalf of all people with disabilities, including everyone on “the spectrum”, those with other developmental disabilities andthose with other physical, medical, psychiatric disabilities?

Here’s a letter written by ASAN in support of funded ABA and other therapies with proven track records, to enable those with disabilities to reach their maximum potential and to be full participants in society:

Because she’s my friend and we’ve been in semi-regular contact over the years. That date back to 2004.

Another reason is because her trial against Canada Post ensured that we have rights under the Canadian Human Right Act:

An autistic person should expect that his workplace be free of any misperception or misconception about his condition. It goes to the right of autistic individuals to be treated equally, with dignity and respect, free of any discrimination or harassment related to their condition. In this respect, in a society where human rights are paramount, an employer has the duty to dispel such misconception or misperception about such individuals.

You should read it. She had an exemplary record of employment dating from 1988 and it was after she disclosed her diagnostic (confirmed 3 times, same source) that she started to have problems with her employers.

On the subject of ABA, the Pediatrics publication recommend ABA for a wide-ranging set of conditions, not just SIBs. It also recommend 25 hours of therapy or more. The thing is, there is no publications on the outcome of autistic adults after having done ABA for any length of time. Why? Given the time of such therapy have been invented, we should have some quality publications on its outcome.

Well, I want to throw this question out there, and I am hoping, Julian, particularly, will answer. If an autistic brain is not defective, and cannot be fixed, and all we can do is train the autistic to behave as a NT, can we train a NT to behave as an autistic?

Alain: You and I will have to agree to disagree about Michelle Dawson and her activities to deny young children the benefit of ABA therapy in Canada and in the United States. She’s been active on her Twitter page, still using that tired argument about abusive aversives to justify her activities.

I’ll await you legal opinion about the Helsinki Declaration as applicable to ABA therapy.

” If an autistic brain is not defective, and cannot be fixed, and all we can do is train the autistic to behave as a NT, can we train a NT to behave as an autistic?”

well probably but why? as the chinese showed in the fifties if you “train” people long enough and hard enough, and you believe ethics is a county just north of london, you can get them to act pretty much any way you like. But it sounds like a lot of effort to go to and im not sure what you would get out of it?

If he wants the question answered properly, he should go ask Dustin Hoffman how he prepared for his role in “Rain Man” – though he probably wouldn’t believe the answer – given that he doesn’t believe autistic people existed before the 1990s.

Madison, Eau Claire, Milwaukee and La Crosse are very blue, but any place that isn’t a university town is red.

As usual, simplistic generalizations prove to be wildly inaccurate (from here. The consensus seems to be that Wisconsin election results are very heavily driven by turnout, with few areas guaranteed on any particular vote.

It’s actually a common misconception that Wisconsin is blue. Madison, Eau Claire, Milwaukee and La Crosse are very blue, but any place that isn’t a university town is red.

Wouldn’t that make Wisconsin purple?

Seriously though, the fact that you so strictly categorize people, communities, whole states… leaves something to be desired.

I grew up in Madison, went to the University here and currently am employed and live in Madison. I have traveled around the country and most of Western Europe, the fact is, is that you are going to encounter people that don’t hold your beliefs anywhere you decide to go.

What you need to understand is that in order to progress as a society and an individual, you are much better off trying to understand where others are coming from, understand their position, understand the weakness(es) in their position and then logically and politely try to make a change through discourse or activism.

Packing it in and giving up is just a result of fear and intolerance, precisely the behaviors that you seem to abhor.

I just don’t understand what you are so scared about?? especially if you live in Madison, it’s so chill here 🙂

if you do, go down to the Union during the summer and sit back have a beer and enjoy yourself, who knows, if you let your guard down you may meet some interesting people!

#332 Well, clearly you’re evil, skeptiquette. It’s okay, so are all men, all people who subscribe to a religion (especially Catholics), all people who live in suburbs, everyone from Texas and Ohio, and probably a few other groups I’ve forgotten by this point.

Well, Gregger, you prove yourself to be an ignoramus once again.
“If an autistic brain is not defective, and cannot be fixed, and all we can do is train the autistic to behave as a NT, can we train a NT to behave as an autistic?”
When you teach someone with an autistic spectrum condition to behave in a manner more pleasing to NTs, you are not making him or her into a neurotypical.
No, Gregger, our brains are not always defective so much as simply wired differently.It is presumptuous to declare that we have defective brains when no one can safely say just what a “normal” brain is supposed to be like.
When you decided, as you say, to throw the question out, you should have done exactly that.
If you like, I can presume to to say just whether your brain is defective or abnormal. Just in case you think anything has changed, I still detest you.

“It would very likely be simpler than training you to simulate a reasonably intelligent person.”

Strangely, today I thought about you. More specifically — your wife. I thought: Narad appears to be such a distinguished, intelligent person. He did mention being married. Surely he would have chosen an equal. What then would Mrs Narad think of PGP’s statement to her husband at #128, concerning women’s reasoning skills?

Narad, my dear man, won’t you humour this curious knave once more and put the statement to your lovely wife? Report back to me her opinion. Let’s also hope that she does not share her husband’s mendacity when faced with tough questions.

Well, Gregger, you prove yourself to be an ignoramus once again.
“If an autistic brain is not defective, and cannot be fixed, and all we can do is train the autistic to behave as a NT, can we train a NT to behave as an autistic?”
No, Gregger, our brains are not always defective so much as simply wired differently

———————————————————————————

Actually, ORD, I think you jumped the gun a little by missing the ‘not’ in my assertion. Yet, to be fair, I made the statement merely as a supposition, because, indeed, I believe that the autistic brain is defective, or damaged. Sorry, but ‘wired differently’ to me is not synonymous with a normal brain.

During the child’s early brain development the blueprint was for the creation of a ‘normal brain’, that, with all its features, would allow the child to navigate his world successfully, and live successfully. For some, vaccines interfered with this blueprint and produced an aberrant brain. Even if this aberration was not marked by destruction of neurons and pathways, it was, nevertheless, an aberrant rewiring. And, from the standpoint of rendering the autistic maladaptive, this is brain damage.

Uh, Greg. “early brain development” refers to the development of the brain in a FETUS, which is when, it has been pretty well determined, autism occurs. Since I don’t know of any practice that vaccinates a fetus in utero, vaccines can’t be the cause of autism.

Lilady: Alain, you and I will have to agree to disagree about Michelle Dawson

OMG –OMG– Alain won! Who would have believed little, harmless Alain could take down big, bad, scary Liladay? Woo hoo!!! See other VCADODers? — there’s hope that you too can break loose from her tyranny.

It’s funny, I would regularly harp that men shouldn’t expect women to do all the work to avoid unwanted pregnancy (so, dudes, get some condoms).
I guess it’s one of these shared responsibilities in a relationship 🙂 Better the two to think about it rather than no-one…
Same advice applies to checking the mail, feeding the cat, getting the garbage bag out…

@ squirrelelite #313

My personal assessment was that abortion is never a good choice, but sometimes it’s the best choice available.

My basic position is that, in a ideal world, women would have perfect access to contraception and wouldn’t need to seek abortion, baring extreme cases.
Except we don’t live in a perfect world.
The occasional horror stories about a unlucky woman who suffered a complication from her pregnancy and get horribly treated at the hospital because, “oh god, we may have to terminate the pregnancy” – never mind that the poor baby is dead either way – tend to reinforce my acceptance of legal, easy-to-access abortion.
The blog of Dr Jen Gunter has a few ghastly examples.

In this context, I fear the “morning-after” pill is not going to help resolve the debate. Between its nickname which is way too synonymous to “one-night-stand” and -correct me if I’m wrong – it does not prevent conception but induce chemical abortion, “moral guardians” have all their buttons pushed.
In a way, from their point of view, it’s even worse: with a simple pill to swallow, women no longer depend on a third party to do some delicate operation, and avoid the walk of shame to the clinic.

it occurred to me that science-fiction author Lois McMaster Bujold may have had a good idea for her fictional Beta Colony.

Eh, a fellow Naismith-Vorkosigan fan.
In your description, your forget about Beta Colony mandatory sex education, under the personal tutelage of a state-approved counselor (with more-or-less optional demonstration).
Never mind the demonstration, I would already like a bit more factual education in our supposed liberal societies. Little kids and girls shouldn’t get most of their education on some crucial aspect of human relationship from priests and porn movies.
Fact -based knowledge is power.

I just read a post @ TMR that invites anti-vaxxers to “know the enemy” ( *a la* the ‘Art of War’) and infiltrate their ranks.
Shannon, the writer,and her accomplices took an e-course on vaccines given by Dr Offit:
his material starts out as “factual” but soon metamorphises into”propaganda”- it reads like a ” playbook… the same keywords, phrases, deflections and denials”; she encountered various shills and minions- probably people we know- on the discussion boards involved in the course.

In this manner, she’ll learn about how the enemy thinks- being that they are decidedly not “Thinkers” as she and her friends are. Shannon ends with:
“This is a revolution and we are armed and ready”.

Oh great almighty (and non-existent) Lord!

Alright, we’ve obviously heard all this bol….*material* before.. the entire works revolves upon the presumption that the studies that Drs Offit, Orac, SBM, most of us and most reasonable people accept and quote are *fraudulent*.

Which is rather unlikely for the following reasons:
– research is not carried out in one place, at one time, by the same people- it is international and created over decades
– research is to some degree adversarial and competitve- researchers want to find something new or something wrong- someone would’ve picked up on ‘damage’ by now
– if pharmaceutical companies *really* had that amount of power, would any drug or vaccine ever be recalled or changed at all? They could hush-up all problems that occur
– how could such an imbroglio of inter-meshed conspiracies be kept in place for years? Wouldn’t someone speak up or show data? They would become very famous
– the studies themselves comprise only a part of a vast, interconnected network of information about physiological processes and human abilities that fit together quite seamlessly- so is all medical and psychological research fixed as well?
– from their criticisms, it’s obvious that high profile anti-vaxxers don’t understand either research or physiology.

I think what we’re viewing is a fantasy system that is shared amongst a group of people who shut out other information much as a cult disallows sources that don’t validate its tenets. SBM has accumulated a mass of evidence that ASDs are initiated at conception or very early in gestation which totally contradicts anti-vax dogma. In addition, evidence comes from multiple sources: genetic, early observation, family history, MRI, post mortem, visual etc.

As a corollary, the fantasy system includes imagined relationships amongst SBM supporters, governments, universities, industry and media. And we see that close-up in this thread.
If you have a mind, it should be boggled by now.

Which is why I always say that woo needs conspiracy – or else it would be totally unbelievable by even the most un-astute.
But you have to be pretty far from reality to believe in the aforementioned conspiracies that support the unbelievable woo.

Shannon who posted on The TMR is all over the internet, posting her inanities. She presented her “case study” (n=1) about her child’s vaccine injury on Dr. Offit’s Internet Teaching Module (which was, BTW, specifically geared toward doctors, nurses and epidemiologists).

“Know The Enemy”? How about having a rudimentary basic education and knowledge about vaccines, bacteriology, virology and epidemiology, Shannon…before you engage people on the internet?

I wouldn’t belabour any point between me and lilady because we’ve been arguing on different ground (me: ethics and the goals of the therapy, her: efficiency and SBM) and talking past each other; thus the correct outcome is to agree to disagree.

Its an interesting story but not one that’s just about pertussis, she says this was the one shot he wanted out of all of them, suggests no vaccination at all. Its doesn’t appear to have been confirmed as a diagnosis and she is perfectly happy to use antibiotics (which I assume must be natural and side effect free). Several posts suggest that the vaccine doesn’t work, despite the mean number of deaths pre vaccination being around 4000 while they are currently at 27 in the US. There is also reference to the old autism debates first it was mercury, then Pertussis vaccine then MMR then its just the overall number. Virtually all current autism research is focused on neuro-development during pregnancy. Non of the range of immune activation theories, which were perfectly reasonable when developed, are now considered theoretically credible. If you consider she clearly doesn’t believe any vaccine is needed, despite all the evidence of resurgence etc its a problem. I do think everyone has the right to an opinion and has the right to die for these beliefs, its when this opinion is used to misinform and influence the lives of others that I objects to. The woman’s a dangerous idiot, that’s about as supportive as I can get.

During the child’s early brain development the blueprint was for the creation of a ‘normal brain’, that, with all its features, would allow the child to navigate his world successfully, and live successfully. For some, vaccines interfered with this blueprint and produced an aberrant brain.

Amusingly, Abram Blau was blaming refrigerator mothers for left-handedness back in the ’40s. No doubt Gerg would have felt right at home with Blau and Cyril Burt.

When an anti-vaxxer proclaims that vaccines administered at age 12-18 months caused an ASD, I always want to ask them about exactly HOW that happened:
did the vaccine kill neurons, make them multiply, migrate or set-up new and exotic pathways? What did the toxins DO and WHERE did they do it? What parts of the brain? How did they get there? How did a few mcgs do so much “damage”?

And also explain why, in general, that substances that cause harm in the first trimester may not cause harm later?
And why genetic influences are not always spotted immediately? And why people used to think that conditions like ASDs and schizophrenia were caused by how the mother behaved after the child was BORN?

skeptiquette: Categorizing people is the best strategy I’ve come up with for dealing with my fellow human beings. And it’s not fear; I simply refuse to deal with anyone who isn’t likely to see me as a person. Or, more likely, I will talk with them, but lie like a rug. Why bother enthusing about dinosaurs or stars with someone who’s religion doesn’t let them look up?
As for the offer at the Student Union; I don’t drink much socially. Most of my drinking is done while waiting for the band to start up.

Packing it in and giving up is just a result of fear and intolerance, precisely the behaviors that you seem to abhor.

No, it’s a result of being frustrated. People don’t read for fun in the US, which rules out most of my possible employment paths.

And conservatism is getting more and more traction here; why bother fighting when the other side has all the dough?

Not to mention that parenting in the US is a bad deal and soon to be mandatory when they ban birth control. No reliable day care, no parental leave (never gonna happen) and all sorts of difficulty at work, and the hyper competitive mommies. Yeah, anywhere else is starting to look really good.

Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that one of lilady’s bete noires is now pretending she has Aspergers. Boy, they’re really upping the ante on the pretzel logic there, aren’t they?

My understanding is that the pill blocks sperm / egg fertilisation in the first place. No abortion; not even a fertilised blastocyst being blocked from implantation. This is widely publicised:http://healthland.time.com/2012/06/07/morning-after-pill-akin-to-abortion-the-science-says-no/
but the moral guardians and Dominationists prefer to ignore it. If they are opposed to the pill’s availability, it because there is no place for any form of birth control in their desired version of Sharia law.

“Let’s you and him fight” is one of the less sophisticated tactics of trolling, but it seems to be Giggles’ favourite. I suspect that he was one of those children who liked to sneak around school telling tales in the hope of starting a ruction.

Teacher: Hi, Alex, are you excited about Christmas?
A: [no response]
Teacher: What are you going to do on Christmas?
A: I don’t know.
Teacher: Are you going to get presents?
A: Yes.
Teacher: What else are you going to do?
A: [no response]
Teacher: Do you have a tree?
A: Yes.
Teacher: Who’s going to bring presents on Christmas?
A: I don’t know.
Teacher: Is it Santa Claus?
A: Yes.
Teacher: [smile] Thanks, Alex!

This is the child’s half of the conversation:
“I don’t know, Yes, Yes, I don’t know, Yes.”

I would have answered pretty much the same today; and that’s okay because I don’t engage in chitchat.

Here’s how a trained person might make this an opportunity for practicing conversation skills:
Teacher: Hi, Alex, are you excited about Christmas?
A: [no response]
Teacher: Are you excited about Christmas? Say, Yeah, I want to open my…
A: Yeah, I want to open my presents!
Teacher: [Smile] Me too! What presents did you ask for?
A: I asked for presents.
Teacher: What presents did you ask for? Say, For Christmas, I asked for…
A: I asked for a bike. For Christmas.
Teacher: Cool! [Small tickle] Are you excited about Christmas?
A: Yeah, I want a bike.
Teacher: [Bigger tickle] A bike! That’s great! I’ve got my tree all decorated with ornaments. I put lots of ornaments on MY tree. [Point to A’s tree.]
A: I put heart ornaments on my tree.
Teacher: Alex, that’s so great! [Great big tickle]
A: Ahhhhh! Cut it out!
Example used courtesy of Richard Saffran at http://rsaffran.tripod.com

With this example, it’s a perfect example of neurotypical behaviour; which is fine.

The problem is that, it impose a linear rate of learning at the speed of the social worker which in turn, depend on the rate of the child.

If I had a 3 years old autistic child, I’d treat him/her as an adult. I’d provide him books, appropriate for his/her age and also, some higher level books (4-5 years old, 6-7 years old). I’d look which book he spend the most time with and I’d carefully explain everything he want to know about the book and once he successfully learnt this book, we progress to the next.

About requiring verbal behaviour, like an answer, I wouldn’t be concerned about that but will refer, with the help of my child’s doctor, to a speech-language pathologist, like I had when young. It’s how I developed my language speaking ability and it work well.

The difference between both approach is that I don’t stress scripted language which is a social situation killers. I can’t fake a situation and peoples usually prefer that as I speak frankly and I would teach that to my child. Not developing scripted language like is done in the second example of ABA for which the neurotypical child will readily know he/she is speaking a scripted language, turn around and harass the autistic child.

I will carefully explain what being autistic is, with all the advantages (23% more neurons and twice as many synapses. More memory, faster but non-linear learning abilities due to the physics constraint in the brain. I hope I’m correct) with the inconvenient (can’t fake anything but it’s usually more trustworthy, difficulty in handling social situation but I would help him create landmarks about social situations at school and elsewhere).

Basically, feed him/her with lots and lots of learning material and accept the fact that his development will never be linear but he/she has the ability to understand complex things. After all, I was able to understand the physics of train levitation at age 13 despite never having had a physics course before the age of 21 (physics of machining metal).

Thanks, Alain.
I appreciate your reply.
I’m writing from ignorance of ABA and limited knowledge of other methods used to help educate children with behavior and learning problems including autism (my wife worked as an educational assistant in a high school program for such students and I sometimes worked (not as a teacher/aide) in special classes for children with especially severe problems).
What I read in the link I posted and what lilady describes sounds more like what I saw and heard about being practiced in school. That is, there are clear and specific rules and goals for how the child/student is supposed to behave and what behaviors you are trying to teach them to practice as well as general education.
The emphasis is mainly on positive reinforcement, with negative consequences relying on withdrawing privileges and separating the student from the rest of the class.
Some staff members are trained to intervene in potentially violent situations.

What I’ve seen probably is not ABA. But, what lilady has described and what the website I linked to sounds much more like the methods I have seen than the severe aversive methods that ABA critics like Michelle Dawson decry.

Alain: But, you don’t have an autistic child and you have set up a scenario of interacting with an autistic child who does not have significant (severe or profound) intellectual impairments and self-injurious behaviors.

Here’s another example of a lecturer who has engaged in blatant misrepresentations and cherry picking studies and research papers:

“….This article presents a case study in the misrepresentation of applied behavior analysis for autism based on Morton Ann Gernsbacher’s presentation of a lecture titled “The Science of Autism: Beyond the Myths and Misconceptions.” Her misrepresentations involve the characterization of applied behavior analysis, descriptions of practice guidelines, reviews of the treatment literature, presentations of the clinical trials research, and conclusions about those trials (e.g., children’s improvements are due to development, not applied behavior analysis). The article also reviews applied behavior analysis’ professional endorsements and research support, and addresses issues in professional conduct. It ends by noting the deleterious effects that misrepresenting any research on autism (e.g., biological, developmental, behavioral) have on our understanding and treating it in a transdisciplinary context….”

Here’s the NYS DOH Early Intervention Program Guidelines, that were blatantly misquoted by that lecturer:

Alain: But, you don’t have an autistic child and you have set up a scenario of interacting with an autistic child who does not have significant (severe or profound) intellectual impairments and self-injurious behaviors.

Among the subjects tested is a subject which is untestable on the Wechsler scale of intelligence and is non-verbal. They tested him on the raven and got a 98th percentile score. I think such a subject has the necessary learning capacity to learn well using my method.

As someone who has frequently invoked the Helsinki Declaration as a means of explaining why various clinical trials of CAM are unethical, I, too, would be very curious to know the reasoning behind the claim that ABA somehow violates the Helsinki Declaration. Will Alain explain or link to Michelle Dawson’s argument, in order to educate my readers?

Not to change the subject or anything, but…
I just heard on KNX, the Los Angeles radio station, of yet another pertussis death in California.
Congratulations to Greg and the other pro-VPD/anti-vax believers at AoA for chalking up another score.<p

@Gregger, #337:
I did not miss the “not” in your comment, but spotted it as simply a trick of rhetoric, as you admit it to be. You are confusing and conflating ASCs of different types. The more severe, or what we may call not very accurately a Kanner type of autism is not the same beast as an Asperger type of autism. I have the latter, and I can say that if my brain is “defective” in any way it is not due to Asperger’s syndrome. There has been speculation, albeit without sufficient evidence, that it is as normal as left-handedness, adaptive in certain circumstances, and perhaps even necessary for the progress or balance of societies. We are the ones for whom the different or variant wiring is a reasonable descriptor.
If your brain is defective, it is not a wiring problem. It’s atrophy from lack of wholesome exercise.

The creationists are a tiny minority, even among christians. Most religious people are more open-minded than that.
By doing this group-based categorising, you are being a bigot. You are also probably missing out on a lot of fun interactions.

Rereading your argument at #159, it seems our main impasse re my take of JTB episteme is your challenge of my assertion that belief is a prerequiste for one to assert knowledge. I think we can agree that I am not stating that it is sufficient.

Bill, perhaps this pointed question may assist us in getting pass our impasse. Bill, by what stretch can people claim that they know that the earth is round, but they don’t believe it? Indeed, they may go on to add that they have evidence that the earth is round, and that it is true that the earth is round, but can they really conclude that they know that the earth is round even though they don’t believe it?

Bill, reflecting on our opposing views, I must say it extends from your deliberate obfuscating tact of speaking of knowledge when you are implying truth. Indeed, belief will always be a prerequisite of knowledge, but it doesn’t have to be (and often it is a detriment) of truth. People can never be taken seriously for saying that they know the earth is round but they don’t believe it. They can, however, reasonably state, even though it may be true that the earth is round, they don’t believe it.

Coming here on the recommendation of lilady from my fields of battle (naturalnews and vactruth, both of which have banned me *sob*), otherwise known as the Land of Woo.

I love reading your articles and am passionate about fighting against the anti-vax movement. There’s some idiot named “Claudia” on VacTruth right now who is trying to browbeat her son into refusing to vaccinate his new baby. You should SEE the morons counseling her: “Try to go at the baby’s mother.”

My aunt was one of a set of triplets born in the first decade of the 20th century to a minister and his wife, my grandparents. Around their first birthday, the triplets contracted a disease; I do not know what it was, except that it caused a very high fever. Two of the three died. My aunt, who survived, was left mentally retarded as a result. She was never able to live independently. When my grandmother died, my mother (who was a few years younger than my aunt) supported my aunt and found a space in a group home for her. I do not know for certain that the fever that killed two of the triplets and left my aunt disabled was one for which a vaccine was later developed, but I DO know that other diseases we can now prevent via vaccination have similar outcomes and I hate the way anti-vaxers attempt to portray those illnesses as “minor” and the complications from them as “rare.”

The ignorance, as you say, burns. I don’t suffer these fools gladly and don’t mince words when it comes to confronting them in print.

Pertussis is no joke, either. I had it as an adult. I coughed for 3 months, and shredded my vocal cords as a result. I had to have vocal therapy for several months following my recovery and my voice has never been the same. Needless to say, I made sure to get a pertussis booster after that; I never want to endure such a rotten illness if I can avoid it with a vaccination.

perhaps a more pertinent question for Dreg to answer would be “what answer could someone give to your oft-repeated question, from which you would conclude that they actually DO NOT in any way, shape or form believe that vaccines cause autism”?

It has to be one or the other. We have SEEN Dreg respond, when people answer, “NO, I do not believe that vaccines cause autism,” by accusing them of lying!

If Dreg says “the only answers you can give are ‘yes’ or ‘no’, but no matter which one you give, I will believe that you DO believe what *I* do about vaccines and autism”, then all that he’s demonstrating every time he trots out that tired question is that antivaxers are dishonest and closed-minded.

You don’t understand Cochrane Reviews do you? Low as evidence refers to there needing to be more research to corroborate the findings that it is an effective intervention that produces significant gains in adaptive and problem behavior.

Regarding ABA and aversive methods, in the early “behavior modification days” of behavioral interventions with persons with disabilities, aversive control was readily relied on. Starting in the early-mid 1980s, behavior analysts began developing assessment techniques based on the assumption that many instances of problem behavior occurred due to the functional outcomes engaging in the responses produced (e.g., access to attention, tangible reinforcers, escape from aversive situations like demands). Today’s “gold standard” functional analyses were developed by Brian Iwata at the Kennedy Krieger Institute (then just the Kennedy Institute) at Johns Hopkins. The advent of this methodology led to the development of interventions tailored to each individual’s presenting problem (i.e., different functional consequences maintaining problem behavior were targeted by clinicians to teach these individuals how to access these types of consequences through communication). Functional analysis is strongly correlated with successful treatment that does not rely on aversive control. That said, not all problem behavior is caused by such relations. A substantial percentage is maintained by either “automatic positive reinforcement” (i.e., engaging in the response feels good) or “automatic negative reinforcement” (i.e., engaging in response attenuates pain; e.g., I’ve worked with many persons with what seem to be subclinical neurological events that self injure).

“However, the quality of this evidence is low as only a small number of children were involved in the studies and only one study randomly assigned children to groups”

Greg: BA, doesn’t sound like a resounding endorsement of ABA. Anything more to add?

BA: You don’t understand Cochrane Reviews do you? Low as evidence refers to there needing to be more research to corroborate the findings that it is an effective intervention that produces significant gains in adaptive and problem behavior

BA, what exactly am I not understanding? Despite entering the discussion with such ringing endorsement of ABA therapy, the Cochrane Review link that you provided to bolster your argument gave a much milder assessment. Were you hoping that no one would have opened the link?

And, BA, I am to understand that, to date, there are only four studies on the effectiveness of ABA therapy? If there are more, please provide them.

Just to remind you all…psychologists from the regional office of my State’s developmental disabilities services office taught parents about behavior modification therapy, using positive reinforcement…not aversive reinforcements. My son was two years old in 1978, when those psychologists set up his behavior modification program.

perhaps a more pertinent question for Dreg to answer would be “what answer could someone give to your oft-repeated question, from which you would conclude that they actually DO NOT in any way, shape or form believe that vaccines cause autism”?
—————————————————————————–

They could answer ‘yes’ and shortly qualify their answer by stating they are either….
1. Autistic (Here they are too naive to sort out vaccine zealots’ web of denialism deception.)
2. Are irrational
3. Haven’t examined the issue sufficiently to where they are confident in their response.
4. In denial (But, if they are, I don’t expect them to admit this. I also suspect that many individuals who have autistics in their families are in this group.)

Anyway, Antaeus, other than these exceptional cases, I do believe that the vast majority of you are just plain liars, including you. And, did I mention, Narad? MI Dawn is a puzzle though. She could be a liar, but then she also said something about having autistics in her family. Perhaps she is in category 4.

Is there anyone here that can indeed confirm whether Lilady had an autistic son? No one who brought life in this world could ever piss on parents reporting how their kids were vaccine injured as much as she — much less had an autistic son.

Dear sir, I must say I am saddened that you have not followed through with the assignment that I humbly beseech of you. In the absence of your effort, let me take the time to reflect on the likely exchanges between you and Lady Narad regarding whether women, including highly intelligent women, allow emotions to rule their decision making:

Lady Narad: Do you think I am so fragile and stupid that I cannot form a logical judgment, and emotions always rule me?

Narad: Honey, I didn’t say that. It’s just that this idiot guy, Greg, from the internet asked me to solicit you for your take of PGP’s claim.

Lady Narad: Do you agree with PGP?

Narad: Of course not!.

Lady Narad: But, she addressed you specifically, so why didn’t you answer?

Narad: Honey can we drop this discussion?

Lady Narad: We will drop this alright, and all other conversations for that matter!!

Perhaps, sir, indeed it may have been best that you did not approach her. Sleeping on a sofa often does not offer the best rest.

How do you know what anybody “could” do? You assume that anyone who has children “must” believe the word of parents who claim their kids were “vaccine-injured” without the requirement they show evidence that vaccines were the cause. I am evidence that you are wrong about that.

The Troll first arrived here during April 2013, after posting comments on AoA. He “claims” he is a qualified “behavioral specialist” who works with autistic adults, yet he is truly an ignorant science illiterate, who, most probably is unemployable.

The Troll disparages people diagnosed with ASDs and other developmental disabilities, in spite of the fact that he is aware that many of the RI Regulars are “on the Spectrum” and/or have family members who have been diagnosed with ASDs/developmental disabilities.

The Troll craves attention and gets his jollies by evoking responses to his atrocious remarks. Best to just ignore him. 🙂

See, and Dreg probably doesn’t even realize that he just torpedoed his own credibility. He’s saying “No matter what the evidence is, I will always twist it to the same conclusion” – and somehow, he thinks this gives us reason to believe his conclusion is correct!

It’s like a speedometer that’s been broken for decades and keeps claiming that the car is going 30 mph, no matter whether the car is moving, parked, up on blocks – and someone trying to claim that the speedometer’s accuracy is actually enhanced by the fact that it never changes to reflect the evidence!

Greg (ref 375), epistemology is a subject that has been made unduly complicated over the centuries of True Believers attempting to justify their beliefs, up to and including the pomo crowd. Since I’ve had a life to live, I haven’t had much time to develop any expertise into the various obfuscations that various folks have come up with to (a) justify their beliefs and (b) persuade you, the unwary, that you must also believe.
I do have some observations on and around my episteme, partly adopted from others, partly original, in no significant order:
1.One must, at all times, be aware of the confusion that arises from conflation and equivocation, as well as the pertinent universe of discourse (“What are we talking about?”). A major portion of your “impasse” is your persistent conflation and equivocation, particularly around the words ‘knowledge’ and ‘belief’. Was my previous discussion of your ‘belief’ equivocation missing anything significant?
2. My favorite statement of reality is the answer to this classic puzzle: punctuate this string of words into sensibility —

that that is is that that is not is not that that is is not that that is not that that is not is not that that is

3. The human body, including its brain, has limitations. These limitations imply inter alia that all statements of truth about reality (i. e. where reality is the pertinent universe of discourse) are, at best, approximations and/or probabilistic: that statement is self-inclusive, of course. (There is a class of statements that recognize that certain pairs of statements cannot both be true.We can treat these as absolute.)
4. Reality might, indeed, not exist after all: we cannot have absolute knowledge that it does. I estimate the probability as being vanishingly small and find the possibility uninteresting, so I adopt as an axiom that reality does exist, and that it includes me (for the nonce, anyway). I avoid solipsism by recognizing that if I made reality and its rules, then I have bound myself to follow those rules.
5. Honesty is not only the best policy, it’s a sine qua non of a successful existence as a member of our social species. This includes such sub-items as being honest with oneself, which in turn means eschewing binary belief in favor of knowledge; abjuring the idea of absolute knowledge, either subjective or objective.
I think I’ve covered everything significant for our discussion.
————————————————————————————–

Rereading your argument at #159, it seems our main impasse re my take of JTB episteme is your challenge of my assertion that belief is a prerequiste for one to assert knowledge. I think we can agree that I am not stating that it is sufficient.

I have already agreed that your JTB episteme does not say that belief is sufficient: Your JTB statement also requires finding supporting evidence, and requires a nebulous, unknowable quantity of Truth.

Bill, perhaps this pointed question may assist us in getting pass our impasse. Bill, by what stretch can people claim that they know that the earth is round, but they don’t believe it? Indeed, they may go on to add that they have evidence that the earth is round, and that it is true that the earth is round, but can they really conclude that they know that the earth is round even though they don’t believe it?

I don’t recall all the identities involved, but there’s a famous quote from Albert Einstein, concerning the evidence for the probabilistic nature of reality at the subatomic scale. Einstein knew it, but refused to believe it, dismissing the idea with “God doesn’t play dice with the universe.”
I have stood on the beach, and seen peaks of offshore islands; I’ve gone up the mountains and seen more of the islands, obviously obscured at lower elevations by the earth’s curvature. But if I’m building a house, or even a skyscraper, I’m not going to use spherical trig calculations to support my construction.

Bill, reflecting on our opposing views, I must say it extends from your deliberate obfuscating tact[i>sic of speaking of knowledge when you are implying truth.

I have been very careful, as per my habit, of separating thoughts, like knowledge and belief, from reality. Perhaps, from an oversimplification episteme, you find that separation to be obfuscating. Those of us who recognize our own humanity (and the humanity of others) have no problem with your arrogance of presuming reality to be a personal construct.

Indeed, belief will always be a prerequisite of knowledge, but it doesn’t have to be (and often it is a detriment) of truth.

Your Dark-Age episteme requires that precedence but more modern and productive ones reverse the order. ‘Round these parts, young feller, belief (at least your binary kind) is avoided, in favor of knowledge
————————————————————-
It’s getting tired out this afternoon, so I’m not going to even review his comment. Greg’s #375 is the last I’ve read, so Imma gonna submit, warts and all, and see what the other folks have had to say.

Interestingly enough, I notice that the creature- who has been here for a long time- seems to not pick up on oft-mentioned, salient information from regular commenters and thus speculates about lilady’s “autistic” child and Narad’s “wife”. Or repeatedly gets nyms wrong, even simple ones like “Kreb”. Yet he talks with such assuredness.

So what does that tell us?

In addition, one of his most frequent emissions involves some variant of : ‘pharma shills paid to lie about vaccines harming children’. Which either emerged birthed intact from his fevered imagination or was haphazardly nicked from
AoA’s. Yet he discusses *knowledge*. And truth.

@Greg #384: MI Dawn is a puzzle though. She could be a liar, but then she also said something about having autistics in her family. Perhaps she is in category 4.

Well, Greg, I’m not a liar, and the autistics were prior to most vaccinations (one was born in the 1930s, my great-uncles in the 1890s). They may not all have had an official diagnosis, but they were definitely ASD, and the 1930s cousin was actually diagnosed with Kanner’s autism. And no childhood vaccines back then. The most the cousin *may* have gotten was smallpox before starting school.

So, no, I’m not in denial either. In fact, we have some ASD type family members still, in various generations, with varying amounts of vaccines received.

So no, I still don’t believe vaccines cause autism.

AND:
Vaccines don’t make autism worse.
Some people shouldn’t be vaccinated with some vaccines due to health issues (allergies, autoimmune problems).
There are probably very few people on earth who should never be vaccinated with anything, but, medically, I’m sure some exist. Some may even be autistic. But the vaccines are not related to the autism.
We are all aware that vaccines are not 100% safe nor 100% effective. Nothing in life is.

Now, go ahead, call me a liar, call me in denial. I will continue to think of you as the most dishonest person I have ever met on the internet.

Is there anyone here that can indeed confirm whether Lilady had an autistic son? No one who brought life in this world could ever piss on parents reporting how their kids were vaccine injured as much as she — much less had an autistic son.

You have made us well aware of your boundless arrogance and hypocrisy. Now you stoop to indecency, too. In particular, you misrepresent lilady’s reports of her late child’s medical history, and ask us to provide confirmation of your misrepresentation.
This paragraph is a great example of your hypocrisy, by the way. You’ve gone on at great length about your Dark-Ages JTB episteme, that you require belief, supporting evidence (while possibly disregarding conflicting evidence), and Truth™.
A parent reports to have chosen to believe the VCA conjecture, with (as always) no supporting evidence and despite the masses of conflicting evidence. You, having also chosen to believe the VCA nonsense, accept this unsupported parental belief as if it were evidence that confirms your choice to believe. And you try to call yourself rational with this ridiculous threshold of evidence.
Your intro philosophy teacher must be right proud of you, cowboy.

“what answer could someone give to your oft-repeated question, from which you would conclude that they actually DO NOT in any way, shape or form believe that vaccines cause autism”?
They could answer ‘yes’ and shortly qualify their answer by stating they are either….
1. Autistic (Here they are too naive to sort out vaccine zealots’ web of denialism deception.)
2. Are irrational
3. Haven’t examined the issue sufficiently to where they are confident in their response.
4. In denial (But, if they are, I don’t expect them to admit this. I also suspect that many individuals who have autistics in their families are in this group.

All you have done is show us how narrow-minded you are. You are convinced you are correct and that those who disagree are naive; irrational; ignorant, or; in denial. We have repeatedly asked you to bring your evidence and you have either ignored our requests or given “evidence” that we have been able to tear apart. I’ve learnt the hard way that insulting people (as you have done) is the worst possible way of converting them to your viewpoint, yet post after post, that’s exactly what you do.

Poo; another borkquote. My apologies again. I hope it’s obvious that the inner (nested) blockquote-formatted stuff is my response to Greggiepoo.
@squirrelelite, Denice Walter, & whoever else:
Thanks for the encouragement. I’m an ancient probable-Aspie with 4th-σ scores in whatever it is that IQ tests actually measure. I say ‘probable’ because nobody who observed my childhood is still alive, so I can’t be diagnosed, but I have memories and residual characteristics that indicate moderate Asperger’s.
One of those characteristics that I’ve exhibited for 70 years is an extreme difficulty in initiating projects. Responding works for me, though, like my responses to Greg.
TMI, I know, but that’s another one of the residuals.

Thinking about it, Bill, you are a newcomer — at least to me – and I never really did officially ask you The Question. Anyway, Bill, it’s a real simple procedure. I ask the question, and you respond with a ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Here we go….

Bill, do you believe vaccines play any causal role in the etiology of autism? (Thanks for assisting with the rephrasing of the question, Narad.).

Again, Bill, for demonstration purpose, I would respond, ‘yes’. Now your turn…

Bill, let’s try this again, and please try to keep it simple with a ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

Oh, do fυck off. You’ve been told twice today that, if anything, belief follows from knowledge. It’s irrelevant. They’re separate categories. You’re as pathetically clueless about epistemology as you are about everything else that you open your mouth about.

Here, Gerg: I know how to tie my shoes. I do not “believe how to tie my shoes.” I do not need to entertain a mental state known as ‘belief’ in order to tie my shoes.

@Gregger, 383:
“They could answer ‘yes’ and shortly qualify their answer by stating they are either….
1. Autistic (Here they are too naive to sort out vaccine zealots’ web of denialism deception.)”
You never cease to amaze…and to offend. Yes, little Gregger, I must be naive because I am on the autism spectrum. My medical training, my experience in medical research, my years of life experience, they all count for nothing because the Great Brain Gregger has decided I am “naive”.
You must lack all self-awareness if you can possibly be stumped as to why I think you are little short of a waste of carbon.
Oh, and FYI, I was born before today’s vaccination schedule. I have had measles, rubella, mumps, chicken pox, and poliomyelitis. None of them was a happy romp in the garden. I have no doubt that you have never had any of those, for which you should thank whoever raised you for having you vaccinated appropriately. Too bad they failed in making you into a sentient being.

Notation, isn’t truly a frightening prospect that your ‘house of denial’, which provides you with comfort (but perhaps only a false one), will someday come spectacularly crashing down, and leaving you cold, naked, and lonely? Isn’t all the more frightening that with every passing day the wind is starting to pick up? (Hee hee hee.)

Hmmm….the only real side-effect from the anti-vaccine movement we’ve seen is a resurgence of vaccine preventable diseases, which is leading to an increase in serious conditions like pneumonia & other complications (including the deaths of numerous infants).

The only one here who is in denial is our troll Greg, who still thinks vaccines are linked to autism, although the ‘research’ ‘proving’ this connection is debunked so often, the evidence is non-existent.

Parents? Of course they can be wrong. Just like pet-owners can be wrong about their pet, which happened with my parents. Their female cat looked pregnant to me, when I was visiting them, but my parents didn’t notice she gained weight. And yes, she was pregnant. Her brother had been nurtured, but that seems to need some time, till it’s really effective, so he made her pregnant.

It goes beyond ignoring evidence that’s been repetively debunked, renata–Greg has admitted in various threads that he doesn’t even have any evidence supporting the existence of a causal association between childnood immunization and autism specturm disorders to be>/i> debunked in the first place. He simply accepts parental claims of vaccine injury uncritically.

Renate: That happened to me when I got a male/female pair of guinea pigs by mistake. (All my cavies before that had been female/female.) Turns out it’s really hard to determine gender before they’re three months old and they’re also fertile from a very young age. I thought she was pregnant from the get-go, but everyone else refused to believe it.

During the child’s early brain development the blueprint was for the creation of a ‘normal brain’, that, with all its features, would allow the child to navigate his world successfully, and live successfully. For some, vaccines interfered with this blueprint and produced an aberrant brain.

And the evidence demonstrating that routine childhood immunizations can interfere with the early development of a childs brain producing ASD’s would be what exactly, greg?

I haven’t read (thank the gods) all of Grog’s drivel, but from what I gather, he also doesn’t think (well, I mean he “doesn’t believe”, because everyone knows he doesn’t think about anything much at all) children with autism can be taught anything and doesn’t believe they will ever progress in their ability to function in the world. This is patently ridiculous; there are many people with autism who are indeed quite gifted and capable and manage to negotiate society’s highways. Many of them certainly are better at it than Grog will ever be.

@423 Helianthus: Nice. It does explain his brain-farts, I guess. Someone in a rather tony neighborhood near here (where the pretentious name their houses) has a sign on the mailbox reading “Passing Winds.”

This reminds me of an hilarious “debate” I heard:
( it is archived but it is a b!tch to scroll through pages- might be easier to google name of guest/ name of show/ prn/
late January 2011)
Gary Null spent an hour with Brian Deer who discussed his findings concerning AJW. The lunatic host’s MAJOR objection was that the canny investigative journalist didn’t take parents at their word, ranting on and on about how parents knew and understood their children better than anyone else, how they saw the onslaught of autism before their very eyes, how he himself had interviewed “thousands” of parents who said EXACTLY same thing, etc.
BD noted that if he had indeed interviewed thousands he would hardly have time for all of the other activities he claims he does. He managed that without laughing out loud.

BASICALLY without that meme, AoA and TMR would have no material. NOR would their apologists.

The Troll has posted thousands of comments since he arrived here ten months ago.

He is a typical troll who adds nothing to the dialogue, who gets his jollies by personal attacks on people who post comments and by referring to those diagnosed with ASDs in the most vicious terms.

I pegged him for the phony “developmental specialist” he claims to be, within a few days of his first post…and thereafter have ignored him. Most probably he is on the dole because he has no education, no marketable skills and is unemployable…the typical dirtbag troll, an odious cellar dweller sponging off his mommy.

Meanwhile, John D. Stone at AoA has posted an article about CNN and how he was shut out of a discussion on the internet; pure comedy gold:

Guys, I might add that I equate the VNCA cliam with believing in God. People say they do, but is it true? Who could believe in talking snakes, people turning into pillars of salt, a worldwide flood, and so on. Likewise, who really believes that parents vividly recalling their kids’ vaccine damages are all liars, except cases such as Hanna Poling? Who really believes that we have always had all these autistics, and we are just starting to notice them? Who believes that vaccine that target the immune system would stop short of causing autism, which also just happens to appears as an immune inflammation condition?

I suspect the vast majority of Believers given a lie detection test would probably fail. Same for you guys.

I would wonder if anyone who really studied psychology would naively accept parental report as the last word and would not know about diagnotic substitution, historical trends in diagnosis / treatment, neuro-developmental conditions et al.

Although there are probably bad universities- but THAT bad? Seriously.

@ Denice Walter: Many of the denizens from AoA know about diagnostic substitution first hand…including the “bot”…whose child was finally diagnosed with an ASD at age seven. Then we have the annoying AoA poster whose child, like mine, was diagnosed with a genetic disorder (which has autistic-like behaviors), at age two, and diagnosed with an ASD years later.

Educational criteria which qualify a child for services, have broadened considerable since the passage of PL 94-182:

And how about Jake?
Wasn’t he originally supposed to be ADHD but die Mutter decided that ASD/AS was more apropro.
Not sure if that was ever seconded by a professional but
“Moms know best!” (( shudder))

Bill still did not respond to the two simple questions that I posed to him.

This may have to do with the fact it is stupidly posed and even more stupidly ignores everything you’ve been told about the subject already,* which has certainly flown right through the wide blue yonder between your ears, given your jaw-droppingly idiotic characterization as “mensa dissertations.”

Moreover, you haven’t even been able to keep your own “question” straight, which has gone from an attempt to insist that belief is necessary for knowledge (demonstrably false) to whether knowledge without belief is “logical,” which self-contradictory and apropos of exactly nothing.

Knowledge is a factive state, viz., the ability to correctly deliver correct information. The useless insistence that one has to drag something called “belief” into it is merely a sad case of the repetition compulsion. So, before bothering with your question, let’s ensure that you are qualified to ask it in the first place:

As for the broader matter of “not answering questions,” I’m still waiting for the α, 1 – β, and signal threshold from a vaccinated/unvaccinated trial that, in the endlessly and mechanically generated words of your object of praise and putative FUD-buddy Anne Dachel, would “settle the question overnight.”

It seems Greggypoo has been active during Orac’s maintenance period.
Greg, #406, February 9, 2014:

@Bill Price
Thinking about it, Bill, you are a newcomer — at least to me – and I never really did officially ask you The Question. Anyway, Bill, it’s a real simple procedure. I ask the question, and you respond with a ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Here we go….

How about we use this simple procedure: You ask the question yet again, and I reject it yet again, for the same reasons that we have explained to you over the months.

Bill, do you believe vaccines play any causal role in the etiology of autism? (Thanks for assisting with the rephrasing of the question, Narad.).

This is a new question, in that your original question tried to focus our attention on your VCA conjecture, where this question allows other considerations behind which you hide the nefarious intent. Both questions are phrased as a ‘sleight of hand’ to distract from the binary-belief trap. Changing the apparent substance of the question does not change the dishonest framing.

Again, Bill, for demonstration purpose, I would respond, ‘yes’. Now your turn…

Greg, child, I’ve addressed to your dishonest question several times over the months that you’ve been perseverating on it. Granted, I have not lied by giving either of the wrong answers that you try to restrict us to. Thus, you don’t have any record of e, falling for your scam — for reasons that we’ve explained repeatedly, you will not get such a record.

“….Neurodiversity only adds insult to injury, especially when Ari Ne’eman uses his own experience of first being labelled ADD, then rediagnosed with Asperger Syndrome, to support epidemic denialism. I do not know Ari’s full story, as I cannot speak for him. However, I can give you a thorough run-down on my autistic experience. I was born in 1988; at the age of 2 and a half, my pediatrician referred me to developmental specialists as the result of early developmental delays I had with speech and language.

When I was brought into New York City to see a psychologist at age 3, he predicted I would be diagnosed with a Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) when I was older, explaining to my mother that I was on the Autism Spectrum. My young age at that time was probably the reason why he did not give me a diagnosis in writing. That was in 1992, two years before the DSM-IV came out listing PDD-NOS and Asperger Syndrome as a diagnosis as part of a PDD/ASD category….”

Several times on AoA, he posted that he was prescribed Ritalin while in kindergarden and Ritalin gave him tics…so his mommy instituted her own “biomedical treatments”:

“….I found this difficult to comprehend. I was 16 at the time and knew I had Asperger Syndrome and received vaccines. I started worrying about my own problems, thinking, “If thimerosal can give someone severe autism, it could have given me Asperger’s.” But at that time I was unwilling to openly accept that I even had Asperger’s, and I locked the memory of the show deep down inside.

Throughout high school and into college I would keep my diagnosis to myself. “Asperger’s” was just a label with some symptoms attached. Without a reason for my condition, my diagnosis always seemed incomplete.

Part of my problem with my label was the kind of treatments I received for my condition. Since medications gave me terrible side effects, my mother gave me handfuls of vitamins for most of my life, and later B-12 injections which helped the most. I always wondered why I needed them. It didn’t make sense that Asperger’s was merely part of who I am, when I was given all these vitamins. I shouldn’t naturally have a vitamin deficiency. She also took me off dairy, took me off wheat for a long time, put me through Auditory Integration Therapy, and took me to a neurologist who glued electrodes to my head to test for seizures. I felt very different, not just because of my condition, but because of what my mother did to treat it. Everyone else I knew with Asperger’s was on medication….”

Hmmm….the only real side-effect from the anti-vaccine movement we’ve seen is a resurgence of vaccine preventable diseases, which is leading to an increase in serious conditions like pneumonia & other complications (including the deaths of numerous infants).
Glad to see you can pat yourself on the back there, idiot.

By George, I think you’ve got it! The Greg/AoA Grand Plan for Reducing Autism! Simple – just kill off kids using VPDs, before their autism becomes obvious. Voila! Fewer autistics get recognized!

Greg you are asking a ‘did you stop beating your wife question’….. Please!! If tomorrow a vax/unvax is study completed showing that the two groups have the same autism rate, or if evidence surface of unvaccinated kids dramatically descending into autism like Hanna Poling, or if ‘miraculous’ findings reveal that autism incidence is not increasing after all, or if ‘extraordinary’ proof surfaces that vaccine courts didn’t really compensate for autism damages after all, etc — etc……

Wait for it….

If tomorrow if all these things were to happen and someone asks me if I believe that vaccines do cause autism, then I would respond with a firm ‘no’! No hesitation, no procrastinating!!

skeptiquette: Categorizing people is the best strategy I’ve come up with for dealing with my fellow human beings.

Actually, this is completely reasonable. Categorizing people based on intimate knowledge gained from personal interaction is a great strategy for dealing with fellow human beings and building stronger relationships. It is when a categorization is extrapolated to entire populations or demographics or geographical areas that a problem in logic arises. It would be like me saying, I met this attorney the other day and what a dishonest prick that guy was, sheesh, I never want to even talk to an attorney again, they are all dishonest and prickish. That is obviously a big fail.

And it’s not fear; I simply refuse to deal with anyone who isn’t likely to see me as a person.

But… this begs the question of: How would you know if someone is not likely to see you as a person without having intimate/personal knowledge about that person?

Or, more likely, I will talk with them, but lie like a rug.

And most do this, maybe not lie like a rug, but most omit things or learn how to navigate cautiously before divulging more personal or opinionated information. I would just consider this strategy as being tactful.

For sure! I wasn’t trying to suggest that we need to befriend anyone and everyone, just that you might have a common ground with that someone that isn’t related to dinosaurs or stars. For example, I have a in-law that believes in creationism ( I just became aware of this recently) and initially I was a little perturbed, but then I considered the fact that she doesn’t have any background in science, has no understanding about DNA, speciation, natural selection, fossil records, etc, etc, and I realized that without any knowledge in these subjects and a strong religious upbringing, the default would be creationism. It is what it is, BUT, I can talk real estate investment with this person because she knows her shit, weird huh?

As for the offer at the Student Union; I don’t drink much socially. Most of my drinking is done while waiting for the band to start up.

I hear ya, I’m not much of a social drinker either. It was more just an example of a venue where a diverse group of people congregate and enjoy life that would be hard to rigidly categorize.

No, it’s a result of being frustrated. People don’t read for fun in the US, which rules out most of my possible employment paths.

Read for fun? Yes people do. I do. I am a person. More importantly there are multiple industries that are contingent on the fact that people read for fun. What would you like to do?

And conservatism is getting more and more traction here; why bother fighting when the other side has all the dough?

Did you see the latest re: Scotty and his recall campaign probe? Scott Walker president 16′! hip hip hooray!

Regarding the dough part, you are certainly correct and this is a huge problem we face. Big business collusion with government is probably the most pressing problem we face as a society, we are steadily heading towards a plutocratic system of governance. Figuring out a way to counter the oligarchical nature of our governing/business enterprise is something we have to collectively fight for. You may find enjoyment in reading the essays of Rebecca Solnit, she is an eloquent writer that has a special ability of imbuing hope in the shadows of darkness that permeate our thoughts wrt the why bother?

Not to mention that parenting in the US is a bad deal and soon to be mandatory when they ban birth control. No reliable day care, no parental leave (never gonna happen) and all sorts of difficulty at work, and the hyper competitive mommies. Yeah, anywhere else is starting to look really good.

I understand. But I would disagree that parenting will be mandatory, how would that even work?

Day care, parental leave and the good ol’ hyper competitive mommies (gotta love em, not!) are all issues that come into play when children come in the cards, but they are not insurmountable. We work with a business development consultant and she has 5 kids, and she has a full time job besides what she does to help us, she is a go-getter and she gets it done!

It is very easy to fall for the grass is greener on the other side mentality, but I will use a cliché to answer that: “the grass is greener where you water it”

Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that one of lilady’s bete noires is now pretending she has Aspergers. Boy, they’re really upping the ante on the pretzel logic there, aren’t they?

Sorry, I am not sure what you are referring to here, feel free to clarify.

Lilady is a fighter, she has been and will be and deserves respect for dedicating so much of her time for the welfare of others, yea she can be abrasive at times, but that is probably a result of all the battles that she has waged on behalf of less fortunate people. I respect her for that even if I don’t always come to the same conclusions as her, same goes to the rest of the RI crew.

Bill still did not respond to the two simple questions that I posed to him.

What questions would those be? I’ve responded to those that I have seen, the one about flat-earth beliefs and the retreaded “do you believe in VCA” scam question. If you claim there are more, please post references so I can find them.

Hope he does not come with his mensa dissertations.

According to Wikipedia:

Mensa may refer to:
Mensa International, an organization for people with a high intelligence quotient (IQ)
Mensa (constellation), a constellation in the southern sky
Mensa (ecclesiastical)
Mensa (geology), an extraterrestrial area of raised land
Mensa Music, a record label in partnership with Aquarius Records
In German, the term Mensa is used to refer to a university cafeteria

Since I’ve never written a dissertation for or about any of these referents, it’s hard to decipher what you are babbling about. Perhaps you’re just trying to bad-mouth my attempts at raising your level of understanding, because they’re above your chosen Dunning-Kreuger level.
Disclosure: I did take the Mensa International test, for kicks and information. I’ve never considered intelligence to be a note-worthy attribute: such intelligence as I have has been useful to me and others, but it’s really no big deal. I found the Mensa members I’ve known to be too ego-ridden to be sufferable. I’ve found equal insufferability in those whose ego is offended by a Mensa International rejection. YMMV.

Ref Greg, #434:
Is this a projectile post? After I identify Greg’s behavior as True Believer behavior, and he acknowledges it (but not in those terms), he comes out with a ridiculous accusation that evidence-based thinking is religious, but his belief-based thinking isn’t. Certainly looks like projection to me.
His behavior reminds me of a “Statement of Faith” that’s shared among many religious sites on the web. The last article amounts to a statement of Greg’s (and AoA’s) faith: “If reality differs from what we choose to believe, then reality is wrong.”
(My favorite instance can be found at Answersingenesis.com/about/faith, although I’ve seen it elsewhere. AiG is a young-earth christian-creationist company, owned and operated by Ken Ham. They own and operate the creation “museum” attraction in Kentucky, and are building the “Ark Park” attraction there, also.)

Some of the evidence is referenced above in a previous post and I don’t post for that poster’s education. It wouldn’t know evidence if it bit him in the ass. Again the assessment I gave accurately reflects the evidence in the CR. I also happen to know the author and the evidence is time limited. READ THE STUDY, the methods discuss this.

-btw- I adopted a young neutered cat several years ago who hasn’t YET got it into his head that he IS neutered.
I don’t have the heart to tell him.

My eldest has been carrying on a long-term romance with a blue shirt, which he chose over an identical white one when both were unpackaged. He’ll knock over the basket to retrieve it when it’s been laundered.

Greg questions to Bill:
1. Do you think it’s logical for one to he knows the earth is round but does not believe it?
2. Do you believe that vaccines play any role in the etiology of autism.

Facing the prospect of committing perjury, or conceding to an inconvenient truth, it appears that Bill is essentially pleading the 5th. Your evasion is duly noted sir.

@Narad

As for the broader matter of “not answering questions,” I’m still waiting for the α, 1 – β, and signal threshold from a vaccinated/unvaccinated trial that, in the endlessly and mechanically generated words of your object of praise and putative FUD-buddy Anne Dachel, would “settle the question overnight.”

Narad, I have made no secret that I am a layperson. Indeed I believe the best study that should be pursued to settle the VCA matter is a vax/unvax study. If the ethical ramification of such as study cannot be overcome, then perhaps researchers should study unvax populations to see if they have a 1 in 50 autism rate. As well, animal vax/unvax studies should definitely be persued.

As to the statistics that would be involved in these studies, I make no claim to be knowledge on this matter to where I am able to offer an input. That I will leave to the experts.

Greg
January 26, 2014
Ok — here is it MI Dawn — now I joke a lot here but I am dead serious: Go to an independent party and have a lie detection test done, and please provide the results. If everything is legit, and you are telling the truth, I will offer a full apology.

MI Dawn
January 26, 2014
@Greg: oh, you ARE funny. But, sure. You pay to have it done – and I’ll happily undergo a lie detector test. I have no fears, since I don’t believe vaccines cause autism, that any test would show differently.

By the way, Greg. I sincerely doubt you will accept the test results anyway.

Greg
January 26, 2014
@MI Dawn
Very well then MI Dawn, I agree that a lie detector is not without its problems and uncertainties. The fact though that you would genuinely believe that vaccines do not cause autism is utterly astonishing.

Yet here it is, stercoraceously vomiting the same material that he can’t dispose of in the natural fashion. One might further note* that an addition to the list of items that Gerg has glaringly ignored fell out of this previous comical retreat, i.e., the failure to document his credentials to his own standard, which therefore can only be assumed to be a fiction.

@Grog, who vomits: ” Who could believe in talking snakes, people turning into pillars of salt, a worldwide flood, and so on. Likewise, who really believes that parents vividly recalling their kids’ vaccine damages are all liars, except cases such as Hanna Poling? Who really believes that we have always had all these autistics, and we are just starting to notice them?”

Gee, who would believe that girls in Salem were consorting with Satan?

Except they did, you moron. Didn’t make it true. Neither does the conviction of parents make THEIR beliefs true.

Meanwhile, John D. Stone at AoA has posted an article about CNN and how he was shut out of a discussion on the internet; pure comedy gold:

Particularly amusing is Stone’s retort to the accusation of hypocrisy: “No, the point is in the headline: CNN are running scared of the truth about Wakefield. A site like AoA has to be pre-moderated otherwise it would be over-run with abusive stuff like your comment and no one would get a word in.”

ORLY? Is there evidence from, oh, say, before AoA “started” pre-filtering comments? The place is a freaking sewer; who’s going to “over-run” it when a diving bell is a necessary item of neuroprotective gear?

The funny thing is that, with over 1400 comments on that entry, there’s no way even to check Stone’s contention to see whether the comments ultimately appeared. His one attempt to link to a portion of the comments fails, and he didn’t bother to link a Disqus-linked persona of his own, which would yield the comment numbers and perhaps the context, depending on how broken CNN’s setup is (pretty broken, from what I can tell, although clicking on the dastardly Tony”s name indeed pulls up his comments).

The simple fact of the matter is that Stone has his skirt over his head for nothing. I posted a reply to Christina Waldman (“truthandcourage” or “courageandtruth,” whatever) regarding the credentials of Miller and Neustaedter, and it promptly vanished. CNN’s no better than SnuffPo, and only a fool would make a show of whining about the venue and how, boo hoo, it’s all personal rather than mentally noting the arbitrariness of how the place is run and not bothering with it in the future.

Pull the other one, jackass. You’ve postured at expertise on basically every shiny half-thought you’ve grasped onto here and required seemingly endless attempts to pound basic concepts into the carbonaceous formation atop your neck-tube before realizing your utter failure and proclaiming that you “must leave” so that you can not only reappear with fresh stupidity, but also pretend that everything else never happened, viz., you can just start repeating it all over again.

Indeed I believe the best study that should be pursued to settle the VCA matter is a vax/unvax study. If the ethical ramification of such as study cannot be overcome….

You have previously been told that you can set aside the ethical issue in order to demonstrate whether you knew what you were talking about in the first place, so that evasion can be set aside for good.

As to the statistics that would be involved in these studies, I make no claim to be knowledge on this matter to where I am able to offer an input. That I will leave to the experts.

You have been given explicit pointers on how to educate yourself about this topic repeatedly. If you are too damned lazy or stupid to pursue them, I suggest that you shut the fυck up about the subject entirely, because you don’t have a goddamned thing to say. Feel free to convey the same sentiment to your FUD-bud the Dachelbot.

The Wakefield Wikipedia article is grossly defamatory, although Wikipedia is supposed to have safeguards to protect a biography of a living person from defamation. I have tried several times to suggest edits to that article, and met with the same “Praetorian Guard” phenomenon John mentioned. Some people involved with that Wakefield Wikipedia article also wrote the Jan. 6, 2011 Washington Times articles on Dr. Wakefield in the same vein (Jan. 6, 2011 being, of course, the date of Brian Deer’s alleged defamation of Dr. Wakefield and his work in the British Medical Journal).

I stay away from Wikipedia and warn other people that Wikipedia is not credible. You might think people would be more careful not to post information without checking facts for accuracy, but there’s a lack of oversight on Wikipedia.

Yes, Christina, yes, you might. Let’s see: Her “suggestions” consisted of* two ab initio attempts at large-scale revision and a single comment to the talk page pointing out the obvious, the aftermath of which was that… the page remained unlocked.

Some “Praetorian Guard” that is.

* Generously assuming that she didn’t try to do the same thing under different semi-identities.

Greg questions to Bill:
1. Do you think it’s logical for one to [say] he knows the earth is round but does not believe it?

At first blush, I would suspect so. Of course, since I don’t (usually) go off half cocked, I would examine the context and any other evidence before I would raise my suspicion to a higher level.
For example, if I were building a house, or even a skyscraper, I would be wary of an engineer who used spherical (round-earth) geometry for his calculations, from a belief that round-earth geometry was appropriate.

2. Do you believe that vaccines play any role in the etiology of autism.

We’ve been through this several times in the months you’ve been babbling here. But since you have changed the substantive part of your question, and changed the demand for the binary (religious) interpretation of ‘believe’ in your framing, I’ll address it, again.
I observe at least one mechanism by which vaccines may be said play a rôle in the etiology of autism: an autistic youngun that dies of a VPD before his autism is diagnosed certainly arrests the progression of his symptoms; the vaccine that protects the young (prediagnosis) autistic child from death by VPD allows the autism to progress to diagnosis. Does that observation count? This mechanism would effect the absolute number of autism diagnoses, but wouldn’t matter much to prevalence.
Seriously, “believe”, especially as you use it, is so much an equivocation that no observant person can give a truthful answer to your question.
The definitive answer to the substantive issue remains: the evidence shows precious little, if any, relationship between vaccination and autism.

Facing the prospect of committing perjury, or conceding to an inconvenient truth, it appears that Bill is essentially pleading the 5th.

No, I’m objecting to the form of the question, since either “yes” or “no”, to a belief-ridden ego problem like you’ve shown yourself to be would be a lie (in the misrepresentation of the answer that’s required by your religious predilections). By the way, Greggypoo, ‘perjury’ refers to a lie, under oath, that has significant effect on the outcome of a proceeding.

Your evasion is duly noted sir.

I encountered this post (the first time I saw these questions) at 20140211T0540 (GMT). Would you care to elaborate on the “evasion” of which you speak, or are you just being disingenuous again? It’s now, just before I submit this comment, 20140211T0630.
Oops, I got interrupted to give some care to my disabled wife. It’s now 0700. submitting.

I’ve had some contact with Waldman on blogs. She’s not quite as loony as Parker…but running as a close second.

Waldman may not appear to be as overtly deranged as Cynthia Parker to the casual observer, but she plainly fails to understand why people refuse to fall in line when her massively bloated ego winds up emitting such gems as this:

Herd immunity is a concept that derived from observing natural immunity in animal herds exposed to actual disease. It is assumed that it works the same way with immunizations, but not all evidence leads that way. I say it is theoretical as all science is theory until proven otherwise.

Um, not exactly, Christina, unless one thinks that word coincidences get you to here and thence to PDEs that owe nothing of consequence to 19th-century cattle breeders.

And there’s the rub: Waldman is rigid. She’s as likely as not to burrow ever deeper into weird conspiracies to explain her lot. She’s moved from the armpit of Illinois, Carbondale, to a close contender, Rochester. Someone is clearly failing to appreciate the brilliant analytical and tactical skills that she so finely honed in America’s No. 140 law school.* Just give it time.

Someone else at AoA isn’t too pleased with Wikipedia’s entry on one of the key players in the vaccine/autism controversy. I’m thinking these comments about Wikipedia entries might become a pastime for the groupies and a feature on AoA:

Sad that Wikipedia degenerated so rapidly into little more than a digital pissing contest. And tragic that mainstream journalists show so little interest in correcting the false official story on MMR injury… especially because that and other shots continue to claim more tiny victims.

Someone else at AoA isn’t too pleased with Wikipedia’s entry on one of the key players in the vaccine/autism controversy. I’m thinking these comments about Wikipedia entries might become a pastime for the groupies and a feature on AoA:

Sad that Wikipedia degenerated so rapidly into little more than a digital pissing contest. And tragic that mainstream journalists show so little interest in correcting the false official story on MMR injury… especially because that and other shots continue to claim more tiny victims.

Someone else at AoA isn’t too pleased with Wikipedia’s entry on one of the key players in the vaccine/autism controversy. I’m thinking these comments about Wikipedia entries might become a pastime for the groupies and a feature on AoA:

Sad that Wikipedia degenerated so rapidly into little more than a digital pissing contest. And tragic that mainstream journalists show so little interest in correcting the false official story on MMR injury… especially because that and other shots continue to claim more tiny victims.

Sad that Wikipedia degenerated so rapidly into little more than a digital pissing contest. And tragic that mainstream journalists show so little interest in correcting the false official story on MMR injury… especially because that and other shots continue to claim more tiny victims.

I observe at least one mechanism by which vaccines may be said play a rôle in the etiology of autism: an autistic youngun that dies of a VPD before his autism is diagnosed certainly arrests the progression of his symptoms

Speaking of which, It’s a Happy Day, Sunshine Gerg! Of course, one cannot ascribe causality from this remove, but this must be a sign of good things to come!

Let us recall:

[W]e need to erode the public’s trust in vaccines. We are starting to see this…. The net is a powerful means for fostering this distrust and I think it would be great if we could support Anne. I did not see much takers, but I am definitely on board.

I thought the Poling wiki entry was objective and accurate. The points raised by the people like Siedel are merely factual, so how can the AoA clowns object? No doubt they want the article to claim that Hannah’s autism was directly caused by vaccines and that was what the settlement was for, but since that isn’t the truth why do they want Wiki to lie about it?
In fact the wiki article could have gone much further. It could have explained how the prior submission for compensation acts as a huge conflict of interest regarding the subsequent Poling paper implicating vaccines in Hannah’s “autism”, and how this conflict of interest was hidden from both Poling’s coauthors and the journal he submitted the article to, which resulted in a major knuckle rapping for Poling from the editor. Shades of Andrew Wakefield indeed.

Narad, I have made no secret that I am a layperson. Indeed I believe the best study that should be pursued to settle the VCA matter is a vax/unvax study.

It has been pointed out to you REPEATEDLY that a vax/unvax study would be unethical, violate the Helsinki Accord, and be shot down by any properly constituted Ethical Review Board.
You are indeed a layperson.

. If the ethical ramification of such as study cannot be overcome, then perhaps researchers should study unvax populations to see if they have a 1 in 50 autism rate.

Some such studies have been done, although they are too small to be definitive. One was a telephone survey done by homeopaths. Hilariously, it found that the vaccinated are less likely to be autistic. Unfortunately, it was very weak (self-reporting, small size, possible selection bias).

Bill Price – Thank you for the heads up regarding the baby who (tragically) passed away from pertussis. It was in Riverside County, yes? I googled.
It provides an excellent argument for me, as that is a nice halfway point between my boyfriend and his ex, who share custody of their completely unvaccinated 2 year-old son.

Another example of an AoA groupie who doesn’t trust Wikipedia. It looks like the start of a trend for them:

They’re just taking a page from the playbook of fans of Stanislaw Burzynski, who relentlessly complain about his Wikipedia entry and claim Wikipedia has been “hijacked” by a shadowy cabal of “Skeptics.” 🙂

[W]e need to erode the public’s trust in vaccines. We are starting to see this…. The net is a powerful means for fostering this distrust and I think it would be great if we could support Anne. I did not see much takers, but I am definitely on board.

Drug pushers, I am quite proud of my stance on vaccines. A product that can often cause a serious permanent disability — autism– in 1 in 50 kids, plus other previously noted adverse effects — ADHD, SIDS, learning disability, asthma, diabetes, allergies, cancers, and so on — is something to be shun. Perhaps, at one time we could have entertained the discussion of whether the benefits outweigh the risks. Yet, as the picture becomes clearer, it appears that this ship has long sailed. The benefits do not outweigh the risks!

Anyway drug pushers, I must take another of my extended breaks. I will leave you to reflect on this comment. When I return, perhaps, we may start the discussion of the best way to phase out vaccines.

Drug pushers, I am quite proud of my stance on vaccines. A product that can often cause a serious permanent disability — autism– in 1 in 50 kids, plus other previously noted adverse effects — ADHD, SIDS, learning disability, asthma, diabetes, allergies, cancers, and so on — is something to be shunned.

Except that vaccines cause none of those conditions. Certainly, antivaccinationists like yourself have never been able to provide convincing evidence that they do, and there’s abundant evidence in the scientific literature that they don’t cause autism, ADHD, developmental disability, asthma, etc. In fact, in the case of SIDS, there’s evidence that vaccines are protective.

A product that can often cause a serious permanent disability — autism– in 1 in 50 kids, plus other previously noted adverse effects — ADHD, SIDS, learning disability, asthma, diabetes, allergies, cancers, and so on — is something to be shun. Perhaps, at one time we could have entertained the discussion of whether the benefits outweigh the risks. Yet, as the picture becomes clearer, it appears that this ship has long sailed. The benefits do not outweigh the risks.

Citation needed for every claim you’ve made.

When I return, perhaps, we may start the discussion of the best way to phase out vaccines.

Simple. We do it the same way smallpox was phased out. We vaccinate for long enough that the diseases die out in the wild, then we stop vaccinating against them.

Groggy spews: “A product that can often cause a serious permanent disability — autism– in 1 in 50 kids, plus other previously noted adverse effects — ADHD, SIDS, learning disability, asthma, diabetes, allergies, cancers, and so on — is something to be shun. Perhaps, at one time we could have entertained the discussion of whether the benefits outweigh the risks. Yet, as the picture becomes clearer, it appears that this ship has long sailed. The benefits do not outweigh the risks!”

Idiot, you haven’t shown ANY evidence that vaccines cause autism or any of the other maladies you listed. When are you going to do that? And the word is “shunned,” you stupid git. Furthermore, the benefits of vaccination have been shown time and time again to outweigh the risks. When you can prove otherwise, do so.

Who believes that vaccine that target the immune system would stop short of causing autism, which also just happens to appears as an immune inflammation condition?

A truly spectacular level of idiocy. Well done.

Even if we treated “autism is an immune inflammation condition” as a 100% unquestionably correct premise for the purposes of argument – it still wouldn’t point to “vaccines cause autism”, because “vaccines protect against autism is an equally reasonable conclusion from that premise.

This has been pointed out to Dreg before, but he doesn’t have the requisite resources of intelligence/honesty to stop trotting it out.

Greg questions to Bill:
1. Do you think it’s logical for one to he knows the earth is round but does not believe it?
2. Do you believe that vaccines play any role in the etiology of autism.

Facing the prospect of committing perjury, or conceding to an inconvenient truth, it appears that Bill is essentially pleading the 5th. Your evasion is duly noted sir.

I quoted this because it demonstrates something all lurkers should understand about Dreg: his arrogance is unbounded. “Perjury” is lying to a legal authority. “Pleading the Fifth Amendment” is invoking a right to not incriminate oneself even if directed to do so by a legal authority.

So, lurkers, Dreg is effectively falsely representing himself as a legal authority. In truth, Dreg wouldn’t even be allowed to serve on a jury, not if counsel for either side knew how arrogantly he throws out actual evidence and pronounces judgment based on prejudices:

Also from the same link above, regarding the question with which he’s now pestering Bill:

You might be interested to know that I don’t care about your response either way. I just want to see if you will fess up or prove his/herself to be a liar.

So, no, Bill is not “pleading the Fifth”, because he is not answering questions from an actual legal authority. He is quite wisely ignoring questions asked for dishonest purposes, by someone who has announced beforehand that they plan to twist whatever answer they get.

Lurkers, is this really the side you want to throw in with? This isn’t limited to Greg; the antivax sites like Age of Autism are infamous for deleting comments that don’t fit with their beliefs. Why is it that the science-based medicine side can consider antivax arguments and respond to them reasonably, but the antivax side is reduced to ploys like “Ooops, that inconvenient question just magically disappeared from existence!” and “Ooh, you better answer my rigged question because otherwise you’ll be in big trouble with my for-real pretend legal authoritay!”??

Narad, I have made no secret that I am a layperson.

Except when he claimed to have a study design which was so foolproof, which would settle the VCA “debate” so thoroughly, that the only reason mainstream medicine could possibly hesitate to do so such a study is if they were afraid of what the results would show. You can’t make a claim like that, which depends upon expert knowledge, then turn around and say “Oh, I’m only a layperson!”

Again, lurkers, is this who you want to depend on? People who pretend to be legal authorities when they aren’t and never were? People who flip back and forth between “I’m only a layperson, how unfair of you to ask me for specifics on my scientific claims” and “You’re a liar if you say you don’t believe my scientific claims, because my brilliant scientific analysis proves them to be true beyond any reasonable doubt!”?

Which means nothing. White supremacists are quite proud of their vicious hatred for non-whites, but it doesn’t mean that stance is laudable, or based on anything other than pseudoscience.

A product that can often cause a serious permanent disability — autism– in 1 in 50 kids, plus other previously noted adverse effects — ADHD, SIDS, learning disability, asthma, diabetes, allergies, cancers, and so on — is something to be shun.

Since Dreg has approximately the same command of logic that your average rhesus monkey has of a Harrier jet, I’ll spell out the full syllogism that Dreg thinks he’s completing:

1) A product that can often cause a serious permanent disability — autism– in 1 in 50 kids, plus other previously noted adverse effects — ADHD, SIDS, learning disability, asthma, diabetes, allergies, cancers, and so on — is something to be shun.
2) (unstated) Vaccines are such a product.
3) Therefore vaccines should be shunned.

The problem for Dreg is that a syllogism only has logical force if its form is correct and BOTH its premises are true, and though he may bluster and blather that the evidence showing vaccines to cause that laundry list of problems is solid, it’s not. He’s embarrassed himself before laying out what looks to HIS perceptions like the solid evidence, and the holes in it are huge enough to accomodate a rhesus-piloted Harrier.

Just the fact that one of the strongest pieces of “evidence” Dreg can cite is ‘autism appears to have something to do with the immune system, and vaccines do too’ (which as we’ve already pointed out, is just as strong “evidence” that vaccines prevent autism as that they cause it) shows that he’s got nothing adequate for premise #2. Which is why he more frequently just tries to repeat premise #1 over and over again, as though that could fill the evidentiary gap.

Perhaps, at one time we could have entertained the discussion of whether the benefits outweigh the risks. Yet, as the picture becomes clearer, it appears that this ship has long sailed. The benefits do not outweigh the risks!

If you believe that, Dreg, you should go out and get smallpox, and then see whether you would have preferred the vaccine instead. In fact… why don’t you just go out and get smallpox.

Right, they get all perturbed over Wikip____, which you can’t really sue as Gary Null discovered ( see Quackwatch/ recent additions/ credential watch).

So Andy and the others are quite stuck with those entries: what makes it EVEN worse for them is that Wiki links to OTHER articles, e.g. Null’s links to Barrett, newspaper articles detailing his self-poisoning episode etc.

BTW — Am I the only one sensing that Bill’s brain cut out at #476? Seriously, listen….

“I encountered this post (the first time I saw these questions) at 20140211T0540 (GMT). Would you care to elaborate on the “evasion” of which you speak, or are you just being disingenuous again? It’s now, just before I submit this comment, 20140211T0630…….. It’s now 0700. submitting”

Seriously, his mensa-brain is like a super computer; it over heats whenever it runs too fast— (hee hee hee!) Listen again….

“I encountered this post (the first time I saw these questions) at 20140211T0540 (GMT). Would you care to elaborate on the “evasion” of which you speak, or are you just being disingenuous again? It’s now, just before I submit this comment, 20140211T0630…….. It’s now 0700. submitting”

(Hee hee hee!!) Can we get a tech guy from IT to repair his fan…..

“I encountered this post (the first time I saw these questions) at 20140211T0540 (GMT). Would you care to elaborate on the “evasion” of which you speak, or are you just being disingenuous again? It’s now, just before I submit this comment, 20140211T0630…….. It’s now 0700. submitting”

A product that can often cause a serious permanent disability — autism– in 1 in 50 kids, plus other previously noted adverse effects — ADHD, SIDS, learning disability, asthma, diabetes, allergies, cancers, and so on — is something to be shun.

And your evidence that routine childhood vaccination causes autism in one out of every 50 children immunized, or ‘often’ causes ADHD, SIDS, asthma, diabetes, etc., would be…what exactly, greg?

Oh–that’s right: you don’t have any.

This isn’t a trivial observation, greg-it’s your entire argument failing from the word go. Come back to us when you’re ready to identify such evidence. Until then you’re wasting bandwidth that could more productively be used to spam pictures of cats and unicorns.

“I just posted the following after the first paragraph of the Andrew Wakefield Wikipedia page:

“The Wiki entry on Andrew Wakefield has a pharmaceutical Praetorian guard surrounding it preventing it from ever being corrected.”

Pleased to say it lasted about 20 seconds.

The following was the response that came up:
Hello, and welcome to Wikipedia. This is a message letting you know that one or more of your recent edits to Andrew Wakefield has been undone by an automated computer program called ClueBot NG.

ClueBot NG makes very few mistakes, but it does happen. If you believe the change you made was constructive, please read about it, report it here, remove this message from your talk page, and then make the edit again.

From AoA: “Can’t help wondering
1.Can Wikipedia be sued?(I’m guessing yes, and though I’m not a lawyer, am wondering if it might only take a stiff letter from an interested parties lawyer to make inaccurate stuff get taken off …)
Also wondering
2. Can the people who made any unfounded or inaccurate edits about living persons be sued?
Don’t think most of the Wikipedia editors are anonymous.”

Not for talking about Andrew Wakefield, unless he can prove that the content was untrue and that there was malice. But given his past record, I’m sure he’d be happy to give it a go.

Slightly off topic, but does anyone have a link to some solid arguments against Dr. Tetyana Obukhanych? I’m trying to help my boyfriend convince his ex to vaccinate their child, and this was one of the links she sent him: